He hadn't been back to the Sahara in months, but he knew that if he wanted to get anywhere with the recent news, he had to be a full hunter at least. To be that, he had to prove himself worthy of a promotion. Rin has been specific in saying he had to step up for her, and he wasn't doing that by maintaining the greenhouse and working in the labs. Runic carving was a day job, but it wasn't going to do anything for him aside from keeping the leads off his back. That's not what he needed to be right now. He had to be valuable enough to be allowed classified information and from Twitter seemed to be saying, it would be deeply classified.
But it was a glimmer of hope. It was a possibility, and that alone meant he had to risk everything.
Portals were tight with security. Going anywhere meant you had to have a reason, which meant he had to have a mission. There weren't many places that said anything to him, but the Sahara stood out on the list on his phone.
It seemed – right that the place that took her would be the place that would bring her salvation. She was owed this.
He sent a text to the only people he knew and waited that morning with the desert equipment packs. He also brought some runic stones for all of them. They would need it.
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Reconnaissance Mission S86 Location: The Sahara Desert (North Africa) Images:: x, x, xx General debriefing: The Sahara has been a strong hold of the Horseman Clans for millenia. Current events have created a demand for more widespread observation of the area, as well as a need for greater experience with the region among Hunters and trainees.
Duties include: Upkeep of base. Acclimatization. Regular patrols. Observe and record any aberrations found within the area. Capture specimens. Destroy threats to the human populace. Flagging A and S class threats for special dispatch.
Bring supplies for at least a three day stay as a base. Modified desert uniforms and gear are available from the Quartermaster. Extra charged runes are recommended.
* C class difficulty level (must have a team of three to five, at least one of them must be an intermediate trainee)
MECHANICS
* MECHANICS: RP assembling a team, as necessary, before heading towards the Lighthouse for Reconnaissance Mission S86. You will roll at least 1 daily prompt for each of the hunters on the team, unless the mission ends early due to injury or further enemy interference.
Daily Prompts: roll 1 d100
1: The ground shakes beneath your feet and cracks begin to appear in the distance when out of the sand a massive sand worm the size of the Empire State Building bursts out. Between its many segments you see tiny flashes of light that upon (dangerously) closer inspection appear to be suits of armour and weapons. Weapons with glowing runic marks. It towers above you and then smashes down upon the camp, destroying it easily. Roll 2d20 to determine your injuries. Your options are to either portal home and report, or stay and fight the creature known as The Armoury (HP: 9999)
2 - 10: Nothing happens.
11 - 20: An unusually large swarm of insects pass by the camp. They seem to pause and hover, blanketing the camp for several moments before moving on.
21 - 30: You find a stone stairway that leads to vine-covered underground temple, red flowers blooming all along its walls. You begin to hear voices, both strange and familiar. Should you get injured at any point during this, the vines will enter your body and begin growing inside your hunter. They will grow more paranoid as the days pass as well as hallucinating, the vines becoming visible under their skin after one day, and then blooming the next. Bringing them back to Deus will end their part in the mission, as they will need a two day day infirmary stay to be rid of the plants. A flower or vine-like scar will remain on their person.
31 - 60: Horsemen appear and attack your camp or patrol group. ((These can be either player character horseman you invite to battle (which will make your base RP points PVP points and worth 2 instead of 1 rp point) or you can battle against an automob who you will be able to possibly capture.)) Horseman AutoMob (clan/appearance/name are your choice, though do follow the horseman guidelines for such) HP: 60 Auto Damage: 5 Special: Should you bring their HP to either 0 exactly or 1, then you may viably capture them and bring them back to Deus. (Bonus Pay: $3000) otherwise they simply escape or dissipate.
61 - 70: Nothing happens
71 - 80: You discover an underground oasis. It's very enjoyable.
81 - 90: You fall through the sand into a stone room. Along the floor are piles of body parts. One of the piles begins to move, then several more. Roll 1d20 to escape back up the way you came or destroy a wall with your weapon. You must roll 11 or higher to succeed. Failure causes you to be mobbed by the creatures. Before you pass out, you notice their features changing to match your own. When you wake up, you are naked and alone except for your weapon's totem. You either escape under your own power or are rescued by your teammates.
91: Nothing happens.
92: You're attacked by figures of bone and rotting flesh, they move both mindlessly and as a unit, as it they were puppets. Corpse Mob: HP:30 Auto Damage: 3 Special: Every time you miss the auto damage is 6 instead of 3. When they are defeated they simply collapse into parts.
93: Nothing happens.
94 - 99: A sandstorm locks you into the base for the rest of the day. No more prompts may be rolled for that day.
100: Moths shot through with silvery veins begin to form a female figure. (post quote lizbot)
* 3 mission reward points for completing this successfully
Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:19 pm
Lawr showed up to the Sahara because he was requested to be there. He had not been back since the incident with Taym and in fact was rather looking forward to it. There had been the mystery hanging in the air if the explosion had finished off the most generous horsewoman or if, being a typical creature of fear if she would still live.
He had brought the important things of course, maintenence items, sunblock and so on.
"Hello Melvin." he said with a smile. He had no idea Horace was invited.
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Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:44 pm
Horace wasn't exactly looking forward to some excursion in the desert. It was where clones came from and it was full of sand. He shuddered, thinking about sand in unmentionable places. Horace packed carefully, as always. Ropes, flares, one of those thermal blankets that looked like something from a B sci-fi movie. It was better to be over out-fitted than under, he thought. Pushing his glasses up, he approached the portal where two figures were waiting. The team, supposedly. Melvin had said it'd be him and someone else, although Horace had no idea who.
"Hey, Melvin! Hello... Jan. Wait, are we all going together?" Pleased surprise filtered into his voice. Not bad. His friend and his boyfriend. Jan had showed he was good at defending, and Melvin had pulled his weight in Paris. It was a bit of an uneven group: two deaths and one lifer, but they'd make it work. Horace still wished for a sun or moon, prefereably a sun - hard hitters made enemies easier if they encountered any. He blinked at the both of them. Hmm.
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Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:22 pm
He smiled at both of them, glad to see they had both been punctual and appeared prepared.
"Hello Jan. Hello Horace. Glad you can make it. I really needed the back up." He said, glad he had 2 people he could trust to come with him. Usually, in the past, he would have been straight at Rep's door and had Rin by his side, but now things were different and he was still left a bit unsure how they would all fit together in battle. It was best he figured out now, and he had been hoping to find those to defend. He had to redeem himself and become useful in battle and on the island.
Most of all, he needed information.
"Yes, we are going together? Is that okay?" He looked to the both of them. "I'm friends with Jan. I hope you two are okay working together unless that is a problem." While Horace seemed kind enough to Jan on twitter, that didn't mean they worked well in missions. Melvin at least knew that he could work with Horace, but did Horace and Jan work well during missions?
Should have brought a Sun. You guys are going to be swallowed up into a pit. Does anyone have a large weapon in this pile of sausages?
Please, you are not helping my nerves.
Saliva was silent a moment. Melvin, it won't happen again. These two won't be k-
"Oh, I forgot." He nervously reached into his pocket before pulling out 6 glowing stones. Each one had the same runic symbol glowing on it.
"I carved some runic stones for us for the trip." He handed them both three. "They will give your runic weapons a charge but it takes a while. But..hopefully we won't need to be fighting too much out there." He gave a bit of a nervous laugh.
"We should head out." He said, moving to the portal.
Lawr's smile froze for just a second when Horace arrived before broadening measurably. "Seems like we are." he said. "I feel much safer with friends than my many many enemies. I know both of you will do what you can to make this a delightful little mission."
Still, regardless of the slight concern at having Melvin and Horace in the same place, there was a definite good mood underpinning the man's comments.
"We are most certainly friends." he clarified for Melvin.
"Thank you." he said, retrieving the runic stones. "Those will help a great deal."
Moonkitsune
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The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 100-sided dice:
91Total: 91 (1-100)
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 7:23 am
Quote:
91: Nothing happens.
At Melvin's words, he stilled briefly, eyes flicking towards Jan. He'd let the other man answer - it was easier that way. Ah. "Yeah, we're cool with each other, Melvin. No worries." With Darren, Horace had been the secret, even in friendship, so this was more acceptable than that. He'd been a little forward towards Jan on twitter and he wondered now if that had been a mistake. It was a new feeling, but he kind of wanting to figuratively mark Jan as his, somehow. He accepted the stone from Melvin with a smile and genuine thanks. Good. He had a feeling he'd need the healing charges.
They went through the portal and set up at the base without issue. There was sand; it was hot; nothing about this was surprising. He spent a good portion of his time pouring sand out of his shoes and trying to curtail the urge to just touch Jan at random. Small things, of course - pressing his fingers against Jan's wrist, touching his hair - all movements he'd gotten used to doing around the other man. It was an exercise in control, Horace thought. He hummed and emptied his pockets of sand.
Melvin nodded and followed through into the portal. The Sahara was just as it was left and just as he remembered, but he felt a strange emptiness when he looked to his side, just about to say something, only to find the person he wanted to address wasn't there.
The last mission here - had been when she was here.
Following the directions on the map, they were not far from where they were to the designated base and upon entering the tents, he found it underused but at least in one piece. It showed signs of disrepair and attack but was at least not half buried in the sand. For the first part of the morning, he cleaned up, dusting everything off as best he could from sand and setting out gear to make sure everything was in order. Afterwards, he set out to pacing around the tent and checking the area around it, mindful to always keep the tent in sight. It was too dangerous for one hunter to go out alone to see if there was anything, but he felt chained. Safety and ambition fought with each other, and he couldn't do anything else but move around to keep his mind active and restlessness at bay.
It had to be here. Just......had to.
But wandering off was an option for a lone hunter only if they were stupid enough to make that decision. He couldn't. Horace and Jan were here as back-up in case he needed assistance - if one of them showed up, but it also meant he could not abandon them. Especially not Jan. He couldn't let Rin leave again and then forever be without means of getting into contact with him.
After a while, he returned back to drink and eat something, and it was around later that afternoon when the day was drawing to a close that he heard it.
The buzzing.
It came in seconds and he rushed outside, throwing the tent flaps back to see the wave of insects flying overhead.
"Famine." He whispered, heart racing as he watched then and pressing his back close to the tent, gripping Saliva as he watched them. They moved, blanketing the sky, and he called out to the other hunters.
"JAN! HORACE!" If this was an alert, a fight, they all needed to be out here.
But just as soon as they came, hovering over them and circling above like vultures debating if their meal was near death, they took off.
And for once, he wished for the swarm to linger just a bit.
Did that mean they were close? Did that mean there would be trouble later? Did that mean SHE would come?
When at last the swarm was gone, the last black specks of their swarm lost over the dunes, he went back inside and sat on his cot, thinking things over.
The first day was quiet as quiet went, the sun was searing and he was glad of the tent and the sunscreen that he had brought, the desert really was no place for his complexion. Still, of the people he could have brought, Melvin and Horace featured highly on the list - though perhaps not together.
Still when it boiled down to it, he had no real problem fielding both men as needed, and it seemed like it would be rather plain sailing despite it. There was no capacity for awkwardness in Lawrence's mind, there was nothing to feel awkward about, simply a situation where he was receiving everything he deserved and everyone else simply had to deal with it. He did occasionally and succinctly dispense to Horace some of the physical affectionate the other man was fond of, merely careful not to make Melvin uncomfortable in doing so. The last thing he needed were complications and questions where it would be best there weren't any.
Formerly dilapidated their camp it quickly became a contender for the neatest outpost ever to exist award once both Mevin and he were done imposing their respective standards of cleanliness and order upon it. He spent some time himself investigating the dunes around the camp, getting at least a feel for the lay of the land and had returned to have a sip of water and a seat in the shade when he heard Melvin yelling from outside.
He took some time to patiently replace the cap on the waterskin before making his way outside, just in time to see the swarm circle off. He shook his head.
"They potentially know where we are." he said, and attempted to sound grieved by this turn of events before turning his attention to a nibble of the snacks he had brought.
It was the next morning that the pale man set out on what was further routine investigation of the area, mentally mapping out the land around their camp, land which shifted daily as the rolling waves of sand were blown and moved around by the brisk and often biting sandpaper wind. He hadn't brought anyone with him, leaving the others in the tent. After all the sun had only recently peeked above the horizon and anything he found he wanted a chance to converse with personally. It was his first mistake.
His second mistake was to get careless in a spot which was certain that he had already scouted the afternoon before, taking steps across the sand that were too confident and cocky. His right foot found nothing but shifting grains of sand beneath it and in an instant he was gone, appearing to be sucked under as he fell into pitch blackness and struck stone beneath. He lay for a time, the air rattled clear out of his lungs by the fall before moving to his knees, inhaling a few times, quiet, cautious sniffs like a dog. There was a smell, cloying in the air, rotten and lurking.
Butch barked, and Lawrence curled his lip. <> he stated mentally, listening to the low hiss of sand which fell from above still before ceasing, leaving only a feeble lance of light which cut through the darkness and lit the floor. His eyes adjusted and he spotted something..something strange over by one of the walls. A hand. He could swear it was a hand. Perhaps it was one of the previous hunters to man this outpost, he decided, dismissing it as merely an incidental nothing and assuring himself that he would not die the same way in some pit in the desert.
Butch said, oddly lucid with a leering grin that was far more human than canine in his thoughts, always shifting between one and the other in a madly altering flash of features. He found himself irritated by the parallel.
<<I know which one you stupid dog.>> he snapped, and it was enough to fracture the features back into chaos.
Butch whined. But Lawrence was through paying heed to the ghost, summoning him in gauntlet form to reach up with long talons overhead. He was not tall enough by quite a considerable amount to reach the hole through which he'd fallen, and even leaping merely grazed the stone. His mother had, unfortunately blighted him with her diminutive height, a fact which had never enormously concerned him, but did so now.
Blankly he took in the rest of the room, the white runes on the gauntlets themselves enough to cast a gentle almost digital light over the floor. Contrary to what he had thought before, there appeared to be several bodies - none of them apparently whole - scattered around in piles here and there in the gloom. And this in itself was curious, given the heat of the desert and the quantity of body parts, he expected to be choked with the rank smell of it all, this had not yet occurred, he could only assume they were fresher than they looked, or that for some other reason decomposition had not fully set in. Something had killed many people, likely recently, again this fact was noted, but of no real emotional consequence to the man beyond his own well-being, empathy was but an alien concept to him.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 11:57 am
The hissing had long since ceased, the last few grains settling onto the floor in a heap, but the sound which took its place was instead a low rustling, a very human sound of skin on skin, lovers in the dark, a figure creeping through the dark. It was enough to make him freeze again and curl the gauntlets into clawed and lethal shapes.
The body parts were moving, a slow and roiling shift as they made their way towards him. He narrowed his eyes, backing up very slowly. He was not one to fight openly, but he was ******** EM BITE THEM KILL THEM ******** KILL AW AE THEM> Butch went into a frenzy and he swung, striking back a leg which had kicked out at him from what appeared to be an otherwise limbless torso. It seemed to be a trigger for the others, all of the piles springing to life in various fashions, swiping and cleaving, grasping and tugging at him. There was no real room to fight and there were so so many. In the midst of the scrabbling chaos, he noted with a dazed bafflement that many of the limbs he found himself battling against seemed somehow familiar, and it was only watching a hand shrink away into a semblance of his own missing one and the face of another shifting and changing into an echo of his own cheekbones and delicate jaw that he understood why. But in the fight to push back the growing hoard there was no time to examine anything or to come to any sensible solution and before long he found himself trapped in a press of competing parts. There was no despair as breath came harder and harder into twisted and compressed lungs, merely that spark of irritation which was all that the Death hunter possessed in terms of motivation to exist.
And then everything went dark.
--
When he came to - and he had not expected to ever wake again - the first thing he did was shiver, the floor was chill despite the searing heat which often scorched the land overhead and he was naked. Everything he had brought with him was gone it seemed as he sat and assessed his condition - bar the watch which was Butch's totem, still fastened about his intact wrist.
He had no concept of what could have happened to him, the blank space of time between the attack and the present a yawning question mark in his thoughts. He could not so much as begin to hazard a guess, dismissing much of what he had seen before the darkness took him as tricks of an adrenaline soaked mind.
Nothing explained the loss of his clothing either.
Looking up at the square of tantalising sky over his head he called out. "Horace! Melvin!" in the hopes that either of them might hear him. The walls were entirely smooth and flat, without traction or doorway. He was a prisoner and was running slowly but surely out of options.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:56 pm
The bugs had been alarming only in the knowledge that they were most likely spies for the horsemen - famine. All in all, the outpost seemed fairly normal, but there was a lingering sense that things could go wrong any moment. Between Jan and Melvin, though, at least the camp fair sparkled with cleanliness. It wasn't that Horace was an unclean person, just that the other two hunters were cleaner.If cleanliness was next to godliness, they were archangels and he was a tiny cherubim strumming idly on his harp.
When he awoke that morning, Jan was gone. It was not uncommon for the pale man to rise early, going about who-knows-where while the sun rose across his shoulders. He seemed to sleep very, very little at all. But this was not the sand with its safe (mostly) dorms and wards. Horace frowned, but tried to carry out duties as normal. The sun rose, arching across the sky. And still, Jan hadn't returned. Horace fidgeted and fidgeted and grabbed Melvin. He'd given Jan time, just enough to return from a walk. This was too long.
"Melvin, Jan's not back yet." He ran an agitated hand through his hair. "We need to find him - I'm worried..."
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:08 pm
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Melvin had been pacing about stepping further and further form base, but kept himself tethered near the tent in case Horace decided to wander off too. Jan had left early without giving them much in the way of a warning, and now he hadn't even come for a routine drink to keep himself hydrated. It made him worry.
No. It made him beyond worried.
Jan carried Rin with him, and in the Sahara, he felt himself shaking at the possibilities of what could have happened. Did Medea somehow sense unfinished business or was Rin too close to where she had….where her body had suffered and might have gone away. Did her trauma affect Jan and if so, where was he? How far had he wandered? What did the bugs mean and if they had taken Jan, were they waiting now to take them off? From the sheer mass the horsemen had in their armies, he didn't know why they were waiting at bay for just 2 hunters.
What was the underlined worry was that Jan, and in turn Rin, was gone, and he had done nothing to stop it.
Holding himself, he kept looking out like a dog waiting for its master's return, and pressed his nails deep into his skin to keep himself from just screaming out towards the dunes or from just running in any direction screaming his name. Away from Horace, he threw up behind the tent and kicked sand over it to hide it.
She couldn't be gone. She couldn't be gone. She had to have gone somewhere. She had to be safe.
When Horace grabbed him, all nodded, glad Horace was one bored. "Yes! This isn't right. He should have come back to drink. His water can't last him that long. The bug yesterday too. Something could have happened."
He looked around and back to Horace. "We should go together, but spread out wide. So we can see each other but notice if something goes wrong. We should go now. Before it gets dark." Before time took the possibility of saving them from Melvin.
He grabbed his pack and then picked a direction. "We'll try this direction for a bit, see if we can't find anything that might say he was walking this way." The bad thing was, the wind and dunes constantly changed. It was hard to even make out that anything had been outside.
Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:59 pm
It helped that Melvin was there. Horace knew that, alone, he would've gone charging off into the proverbial sunset and likely gotten himself killed. The methodical nature of Melvin's plan was soothing and he set out near the other man. The ever-changing winds of the Sahara had already erased any footprints that might have given them a clue. Horace's eyes hurt from the grit and glint of the sun.
Then he heard it - faint and somehow hollow-sounding, as though it came from somewhere... below. His name, followed by Melvin's. Blue eyes shot towards the sound. "Jan!" Stumbling across sand, feet suddenly unsteady, he ran towards it. Alerting Melvin had slipped his mind; Horace was only thinking about finding Jan and making sure he was unhurt, safe. He had refused to think about mortality or how fine Jan's bones seemed whenever Horace gripped that pale wrist, how oddly delicate. His eyes flickered across the shifting dunes, feet moving ever forward. Horace was so focused on the sound that he nearly slipped and fell into the cave himself, a fine shower of sand cascading down instead. Sucking in a short breath, he dropped to his knees and stared downwards.
"Jan! Are you okay?" Not bothering to raise his eyes from Jan, he called out to Melvin. "Melvin, I found him!" A sort of near-panicked relief filtered through his voice. Jan stood in some sort of stone room - he filed the details away for later, the smooth walls, the strangely man-made nature of it all. With fingers abruptly clumsy, he pulled the rope from his bag. He kept up a stream of questions as he knotted the rope - are you ok's, where was Jan's clothing, what happened's. Jan likely wouldn't be able to climb out on his own, so Horace looped a knot near the end - the one-handed hunter could insert one or both feet into the loop - or loop it round his waist-, hold on with his good hand, and he and Melvin would lift him out. After a second, he stood up and stripped off his shirt, dropping it down the hole to Jan. He could choose to wear it or simply to protect his hand from the rope.
Finally, he looked over at Melvin. "Help me get him out?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:08 pm
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It was hard to see anything that might alert them Jan had been through here. The wind cleared even their footsteps and it had been ages since Jan vanished. Once he found the man, he was due in for a long lecture about running off without a buddy.
When Horace called out, racing ahead of him, Melvin turned and called out after him. "Don't run! It could be a trap!" He shouted, but the man was already running, and despite his own warning, Melvin ran after. If Jan was calling, if it was him, then he was alive, but for how long? Where there others around him? Was it – not him at all?
When he finally caught up to Horace, the man was taking out a rope and tying a loop. Falling to his own knees, Melvin looked around to make sure no sand was shifting around them or no bugs were overhead, before looking down. Jan sat completely naked in what seemed like an empty room. Whatever had happened to his clothes were a mystery, but the man seemed whole.
Seemed.
They would need to check him once he was up to the surface. There was no way he could look down at him and see. Reaching out, he looked to Horace. "Be careful. If anything starts pulling you down, release the rope." He told the other.
If this wasn't Jan, he didn't want to lose the only backup he had.
His heart was racing as he looked down, panicked about the possibility that if this wasn't Jan, it would mean she was lost.
"Can you grab the rope? Are you alone?" Melvin pulled out his water bottle and set it aside so he could give it Jan once he came up and then grabbed he rope Horace had to help pull.
Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:12 pm
He heard them before he saw them, Horace's voice carrying to the hole in the ground on the wind, and the blankness faded from his features, replaced with the warm smile of delight that he knew was the appropriate response to this particular situation. "I am fine, do not worry." he assured the younger hunter calmly. "I foolishly tripped and fell, I was attacked."
Lawrence did not like nudity. He was not modest, that was certainly not the reason, but there was a certain degree of his personas tied up in the attire that was associated with them. Even coming to the desert he had retained a few of his cheap gem necklaces as an anchor to the smug pet psychic, dressing with a certain degree of relaxation that was purely persona and unrelated to the cold core of who he was. Like this he was stripped of any of that, stripped of all props and mental aids to who he was. It threw him off balance.
Escaping his prison was the first order of business and he used the shirt to protect his hand from the coarse rope, showing the kind of wiry strength that only a weapon bond could really provide. "And I am alone for now." he stressed firmly. "So it would be very much appreciated if you would pull."
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:10 pm
"Give me a hand, Melvin." Horace tossed the end of the rope to Melvin and began to methodically pull it up. His palms scraped against the rope and he knew if he'd been normal, he'd have rope burn. It was strange how much stronger he was here than before - even though he was still only a trainee. Sometimes, Horace thought he missed those small pains. As soon as Jan was in sight, Horace shifted, moving to grab onto the other man instead of the rope. He trust Melvin to shift as well, not slackening the rope until Jan was up. Blue eyes scanned over Jan, looking for wounds, bruises, anything. His hand rose briefly to press against the other man's face, cupping his cheek, before he jerked it away, remembering their company.
He exhaled slowly. When Horace spoke, his voice held no accusations, only worry. "You look alright, thankfully. Why'd you go off alone?"
Reconnaissance Mission S86
