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Scouts Needed

This was not her night.

That was all Athene managed to think as she ran like hell from the damn beast chasing her, sand kicking up quickly as she ran ran ran ran holy ******** she was going to die. Whatever creature was chasing her, she didn't get a good look she only heard a growl while scouting and BOOM she was off like hell Athene was staying around to check and die, it was fast. It was also coming up on her like nobody's business and well, her garrote wasn't exactly the best weapon in this situation. At all. Struggling to keep away from it, at least her scouting mission was a little bit exciting this time, her feet were slowed by the sound of the creature in pain.

Turning her head to get a look, Athene was oddly relieved and surprised to see that redblooded troll that appeared on her scouting duty to have stuck the creature, which she could now see was a howlbeast, with a spear. It was obviously hurt very badly, bleeding out in the sand now, and Athene didn't have much to run from anymore. Staring up at the redblood, who already seemed to be walking back to where ever he was heading, she offered him a smile as a thanks. Maybe she'd knit him a scarf later, if he didn't seem to have murderous intentions.
Maybe.

Hacking

He really wasn't at all sure about why he allowed himself to get dragged back into the engineering labs. He was pretty sure his previous display of incompetence would deter others from seeing him as a viable source of information in this field, but as he found himself staring down at a set of blue prints, a small spark of recognition shown in his eyes soon followed by a confident smile.

"Give me a couple nights... I can build this no problem."

Scout

Feeling rather limber and confident after the previous night’s training, Ophion decided to seek out his nasty little desert friends and teach them a lesson about making someone as prestigious as him run like a frightened wiggler and get sand in places that sand should never be. Ophion started out on the route they had given him but, using the navigation device, quickly deviated from his set path to find the area he had encountered the mangy beasts before. It took a fair bit of time, and even more patience than last time as the wind was rather ferocious tonight, but the highblooded troll made it to the “nest” he had stumbled upon before.

Only…there was nothing there. Okay, not nothing nothing; there were obvious signs of a struggle: desert brush uprooted from an obvious scuffle, leaves darkened with blood…the sands had eaten away any other evidence, but it was a decent assumption to say that there was a territory fight here and the scavengerbeasts had lost. Whether they lost and were killed or simply fled was impossible to tell given the ever-changing state of the desert and daylight quickly approaching.

Tonight was a bust. He’d have to prepare and try another night, leave right at dusk to search for the pack…or their remains.

Training

Waking up far too late in the evening to properly plan for his hunt of the scavengerbeast pack, Ophion instead decided to keep himself in proper shape and go back to the camp’s training grounds. More training couldn’t do anything but help and hey, who knows, maybe since he was in the advanced group now he’d actually have a chance to take out his frustrations about this whole scavengerbeast ordeal on some lowbloods. He doubted he’d be able to really maim any of them properly, but seeing some bloodshed and bruising would be a bit cathartic.

However, before he could join the group of familiar faces and horns gathered, the instructor clapped a hand on his shoulder (jegus where the ******** had she come from?!). Ophion turned slowly to face her, his face cool and emotionless…but she was smirking and he knew she had felt that jump of surprise when she had touched him. “Yes…sir?” Whether Ophion was asking a question or simply unsure about addressing the lady as a sir it was impossible to tell from an outside view (but it was a bit of both really).

“I thought there was something off about you,” she stated sternly, and her grip on his shoulder tightened a little. Ophion’s pulse began to rush, but he stood his ground, looking as placid as ever. “Oh?” “Yeah.” There was a long pause as they locked gazes once more. “I heard about what you did in the beginner class,” she finally said and Ophion’s rapidly thrumming heart eased back into its normal cadence. “And?” he asked cheekily, the corner of his mouth twisting up in a smirk. “And while it might have been a real hoot, if I even catch the slightest whiff of insubordination from you,” she yanked him forward by his suit, “I guarantee you will be leaving this camp in a body cast. Is that clear?”

As he was yanked forward, Ophion could swear he could feel his blood boiling just beneath his skin. Look at her, filthy orangeblood grabbing his suit like that, dirtying it, wrinkling it, ordering him around like she was some sort of highblood, some sort of sea dweller even. He could hear his raging blood pump in his ears, all of his senses overwhelmed with fury. But no, he couldn’t lose his cool, not right here, not now, not with her. He had to keep his anonymity, he had to act like he was one of them (even though the thought made bile ooze up his protein chute), and that meant acting somewhat respectful. “Whatever you sss-…say chief.” He smirked again and, after another exchange of heated gazes, she let him go and walked toward the group, barking out for them to pair up for sparring.

Being the last to arrive, Ophion found himself stuck with one particularly timid looking green blood. If he hadn’t had the previous encounter with the instructor he would have been disappointed in the pitiful troll before him and the utter lack of a challenge he represented. But as it stood, the highblood was all too happy to have a live punching bag in front of him. His opponent could even see the malicious glee in his eyes and, when it was called for them to practice their hand-to-hand combat, the troll immediately went on the defensive, practically running away. And damn, he was pretty good at running too. Though it gave Ophion a bit of a workout, he did manage to land several solid hits and, at one point, was pretty sure he felt his nose break under his fist.

When the sparring match ended it was discovered that yes, the greenblood’s nose had been broken and, no, he wasn’t supposed to do that but, yes, she guessed it was a nice hit and, yeah maybe the greenblood needed to pair up with another troll who was a lot less aggressive. Ophion swapped out his greenblood partner for a particularly buff looking red blood. This one managed to be a lot more of a challenge, despite the fact that he was able to get a lot more hits in. The redblood might have been buff, buther build didn’t slow her down by any means and, for every three or so hits Ophion managed to get in, the redblood would land a punch or kick that knocked him off his feet. At the end of match, when he returned to his pod, Ophion found his face and body littered with the beginning dark marks of bruises and, a quick run of his tongue through his mouth found a couple of teeth missing.

“Well,” he thought, “looks like I’ll have to lay low tomorrow. Can’t have anyone seeing all the purple that’s going to blossom on my face.”

Scout

Ophion forced himself to wake up at dusk to begin his preparations for his hunt of the scavengerbeasts. On one hand he did hope to find them and slay them with his own swords (because he was into petty vengeance like that), but on the other hand…it would be pretty delicious justice to know that they had been run out of their home and slain by another desert predator; karmic justice was close enough to vengeance to be satiating.

Once again, he took his navigating equipment and, once he was far enough away from the camp, made his way back to the original area he had first scouted. He didn’t expect to find the pack there, but for starting points, it was the best he had. But before he would do any searching, he would do some excavating. If he found bones he knew that the pack had been killed and he could head back to camp early.

Thankfully, this night the desert winds were calm, making shoveling in the sand only incredibly infuriating and difficult instead of say, downright impossible. This had to be the worst moment in the purpleblooded troll’s entire life (yes, that even included all those spoor slime induced hazes). If he ever needed a good way to torture anyone, digging in the desert sands would be the first thing he made them do.

It took a couple of hours, but eventually Ophion’s aimless digging turned up some fresh bones, sand still stuck to them from when they were moist. They were broken, jagged pieces, but there were many of them. It looked like whatever attacked the pack didn’t care whether it ate meat or bone. It just ate. As Ophion prodded at the marrow, surprised at how well preserved it was, a blood curdling thought hit him: whatever had decimated this pack had a high probability of coming back.

Rather than dwell on the nugget of disappointment in his gut, Ophion hastily reburied the bone pieces and headed back to the camp, being sure to glance behind him every now and then. Yeah, he was quite done with scouting the desert now.

Same goes for dice rolling.