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 Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 9:56 am
 <******** your legs!" she growled without a hint of care. "You'll either get better or die but I don't care either way runt." With that she motioned for Gil to follow her. Accalia would lead the two away from their newest recruit so that could talk privately with the boy. "Watch what you say about the Wardens. We exist comfortably cause they don't see us as a problem. Now those s**t heads can try and fight us but ******** em. Still though best if we keep our noses out of their business. Don't start acting like they're are enemies when they aren't."
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Ergo War generated a random number between
20 and 100 ...
42!
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Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 3:01 pm
 Peace slept late the next day and wound up not doing much of anything productive. It was a rare occurrence that she took a day off, but with all the recent fighting, the hard manual labor, and the late night she'd had, she felt she'd earned it. Given how fatigued she was getting, she probably would have stayed in camp all day warming herself around the fire if it weren't for some screams for help coming from the forest well below her. Even then, she let them go one for a few minutes before finally mustering up the energy to go look into the problem. She really needed to move farther out into the wilderness once her project and martial arts classes were over.
As it turned out, there was a fairly legitimate problem unfolding down near the river. A small gang had dragged some poor clod out into the woods and were threatening him for money. Given the day's temperature, Peace assumed that the threat of throwing the victim into the river was the primary motivating force in this instance. After all, if they simply beat him up, he wasn't as likely to die than if they threw him into the lake and forced him to walk home in near-freezing temperatures. Regardless, Peace was there to put a stop to this stupidity at once, as only her brand of stupidity was allowed within the boundaries of her domain.
Since the group was so wrapped up in their hassling of the man, she was able to walk right up to them without them noticing, which was good for her since she hardly had the patience for stealth. She shoved two of them into the river, then knocked two others out with relatively light punches. Then, as though she were just going on a walk, she took out the remaining three with a punch each and then motioned for the guy they'd been hassling to leave. While they were unconscious, she rooted around a couple of their wallets and grabbed some cash to teach them a lesson, then tied their hands up using some thin vines she found creeping through the underbrush. By the time they'd come to and the ones in the river had waded out, she was more than equipped to take them to the cops. Just for good measure, she also bound the hands of the wet ones, but wasn't as worried about them running off given how cold they had to be at that point. The police at the outpost she frequented were a bit confused, but didn't protest when she walked away immediately after dropping the gang members off.
A few hours later Peace, feeling much better after having lounged around for the majority of the day, decided to go on a walk to gather large sticks that could be useful for a lean-to in case the wind picked up again while it was cold out. Her campsite was already protected on one side by fallen trees, but since it seemed she was going to be around for a while, she wanted some more thorough protection from the elements.
It was with an armful of sticks that she came across a group of punks squatting on a different, but similarly attired, man whom they were shaking down for money. They got the drop on her that time and managed to get a few hits in before she started laying them out. She managed to knock out six of the nine before the others started running, at which point she hauled the poor harassed man to his feet, brushed him off, and had him help her tie up the unconscious gang members. The delivery of that group went much the same as the earlier one had, after which she returned to her camp with her sticks and made the lean-to of her wildest dreams. She rounded out the evening by chopping some firewood and roasting the rest of her venison so it would keep better.
Scum Removal x2: Complete
Wind Screen: Completed.
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Philipwn generated a random number between
50 and 125 ...
80!
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Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 11:27 pm
Gil was thrown. Hell, he hadn't felt this conflicted in... maybe ever. For a long time he'd essentially held entirely to a particular belief system, accepting it without question. Absolute loyalty to his family and absolute derision towards the government were kind of the pillars of his worldview. When he'd lost his family at the same time he'd gained his powers, he'd had to rely upon only that other pillar to make sense of his place in the world. He'd since filled the void of his familial pillar with the Sons of b***h, and it was a good fit, it was something he could be proud to be so overwhelmingly loyal to. But now he had a problem, the two pillars of his perspective were suddenly at odds with one another for the first time.
Could he really turn his back on the principles his family had imparted to him? Maybe once, but now they were essentially all he had left of them. On his bad days, when it seemed like he was reliving the loss, when he'd momentarily forget and be hit with it all over again, or when he had trouble remembering some aspect of one of his family members, he'd told himself that a part of them was still with him in his attitude. In a way, he'd be giving that up by accepting what Accalia was telling him and making his "peace" with the Ward/ens, and it didn't really sound like an "if you feel like it" kind of an order.
It seemed like the only real alternative was leaving the Sons of b***h, but was that really something he could consider? No. It seemed almost strange given how infrequently he interacted with most of them, but he felt more kinship for the other members of his "pack" than he'd felt anywhere else. He just had to think about what he'd been doing the past few days to realize that. They had become the central pillar. So, he'd do his best to keep the peace with the groups he hated most in the world. He owed Accalia and the Sons of b***h that, even just from saving his life. That they'd given him a home as well made it that much more obvious that he was making the right decision. So much so that Gil felt somewhat guilty about having thought it over for so long. Speaking of which, Accalia was still looking at him expectantly, he needed to verbalize his revelation somehow.
He was sure he'd only been thinking for a few seconds, but delaying any longer would still be a bad idea, Gil really, really didn't want to appear like he was disobeying or ignoring Accalia.
"I'm sorry." Gilgamesh looked dejectedly at his feet for the beginning of his reply, not bothering to hide the emotion or shame at first, though he was quick to shake it off, and looked back up at Accalia to continue, "I'll do my best to not do it again. I've hated them deeply and for a long time, but you have my word that I won't let it become a problem ... I won't become a problem."
It was at times like this, existential discovery and introspection leading to a deeper sense of belonging, that Gil missed his old family the most. He really felt like hugging someone, which would've required a great deal less thought and caution than it did with the Sons of b***h. Gil wasn't sure how Accalia would react if he suddenly hugged her, but he figured it was a good idea to err strongly on the side of caution. He opted for a slightly forced smile and a tip of his hat instead.
Mission: D-List Bounty: completed
Naomi Tenkou I rolled for money even though Accalia didn't give me any because of the mission format. Let me know if I should nix that.
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Ergo War generated a random number between
50 and 100 ...
92!
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Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 4:32 pm
The sunbaked earth shimmered under the bright blue noontime sky. Peace lurked in the shadows of the treeline, not wanting to venture out into the light and deal with those vile, contemptible rays if she could avoid it. She'd made the mistake of doing so earlier and had started sweating before she made it twenty feet across the clearing, and her skin started prickling not long after that. Following that, she had made her way down to the river for some fresh water and to cool herself off with a soak, then over to the police outpost just to see what they were up to. She had some time to kill before her class anyway, so she wasn't too worried even if they gave her some light work.
Strangely enough, light work was all they had for her, in a manner of speaking: there was an escaped criminal who was last seen fleeing into her neck of the woods, and they wanted her to go track him down. The catch was simple: he could amplify the strength of sunlight in an area to slowly dehydrate whoever walked in it. It was slow-acting, but the range was enormous, and he was likely to start affecting the local climate if left out for too long. He had been in for habitat destruction, apparently. They also told her not to make their jobs more difficult, but she was hardly paying attention at that point, worried as she was that someone was going to steal her food.
That brought Peace back to her campsite, where she crouched in the shade of the trees while looking out at the fruits of her labors thus far. She still needed to finish filling the letters with gravel, but the criminal parahuman job took some precedence. There wasn't any movement out among the rocks, though, and she didn't hear or see anyone out there. After observing the scene for a while, she decided to go on a walk around the mountain, figuring the guy might be hiding on one of the other sides where she couldn't see him. People were sometimes crafty like that. Halfway around toward the backside, she espied a few dead birds peppered across the rocks. They looked like they needed to get their beaks wet when they died, so she figured she was heading in the right direction. Eventually she spotted a man sitting on a rock, head in hands. He wasn't particularly hard to spot, either, what with the neon orange jumpsuit.
She approached. He looked at her sadly, then put his head back in his hands. She came closer. He remained still and quiet. She poked his shoulder with a stick, only eliciting a response when she nearly shoved him off his seat with it. At that point he swore at her, told her to leave him alone, and threatened her with a small knife and his bulging muscles. Peace slouched a bit and rolled her eyes, then stood up straight and nailed him right in the center of the chest, knocking him out with one clean blow. Following that, she slung him over one shoulder and carried him all the way back to the police outpost, pausing once to smack him again when he woke up and got rowdy. The police handed over a small wad of bills when she dropped him off, which she fanned herself with as she walked toward the city for her class.
Community Outreach: Complete.
D-List Bounty: Complete.
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 5:30 am
She didn't smile or anything but nodded. "Good. I don't care if you hate em or love em, just remember that they aren't our enemies and they don't need to be either. Good work on those trespassers by the way. See you around unless you got something else for me." If she wasn't needed any further Accalia would head off to collect the new pup and make sure he understood his new lot in life.
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Ergo War generated a random number between
50 and 100 ...
55!
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 10:41 am
Peace slept well after returning from her class, but woke early to bright lights and a surprising amount of noise coming from the foot of the mountain. Preliminary investigation revealed that a van and several people were parked in the clearing the eco-terrorists had used--created?--and that the people seemed to be setting up recording equipment. She was really unsure how to handle this development, and her uncertainty only grew when someone in business casual attire started picking their way through the trees toward her campsite. She intercepted the fellow a couple hundred feet from the others, bombarding him with annoyed, quizzical looks.
For some reason, a morning show had decided they wanted to interview her. Over a long series of pantomimes taking up twenty minutes, Peace eventually managed to communicate that she was mute--which gave the trespasser some consternation--and that she wanted them out of the forest. What followed was a rapid five minute conversation between the trespasser and his boss once he'd made it back to the others, after which the news crew packed up their things and drove out of the forest. Peace followed on foot just to make sure they were actually leaving, only to find they started setting up some fifty feet from the edge of the forest. She briefly wondered if she was going to be a prop again like with that story on homelessness, but the questions she was asked when pulled aside seemed to slant toward basic information about her: who she was (Peace), what she wanted (Peace), why she lived in the wilderness (Peace), what she did for food (she mimed beating up animals ranging from rabbits to deer to bears), whether she knew she was responsible for 12 D-List Bounties being captured over the past few weeks (she was), and whether she was a member of a cape team (solid no). The interview pretty much followed that script, with some of the questions tweaked so she could give simple yes or no answers (had she, in fact, taken on a bear and won?), but at the end the interviewer--perhaps with their brain on autopilot--asked if she had anything she'd like to say to the viewers at home. Before someone could cut the segment off, Peace nodded.
All throughout the interview, Peace had stared directly into the camera with an expression that was a total blank slate, but at this point she was getting pretty animated. She opened by waving one hand toward the wilderness and jabbing her other thumb toward her nose, then pointed at the camera, made a walking motion with her fingers while pointing toward the forest, then made an "X" with her arms. After a couple moments of stunned silence in which she returned to staring blankly at the camera, the reporter cleared her throat and asked if Peace just wanted people to stay out of wilderness for their own safety, which received a nod followed by Peace dragging her thumb across her neck threateningly and then waving a fist at the camera. The reporter, confused, asked if she was going to get violent when she only wanted peace. Peace nodded, pointed at the mountain bearing her name and to herself, then pointed at the camera and shook her head. At that, the reporter tossed back to the main studio.
Peace thought she'd done well, but the news crew seemed less than pleased. Regardless, they left in short order and Peace went back to her mountain to get some more shut-eye before the day really got into swing. She ended up not being able to fall asleep again, though, so she ate a quick breakfast and then started hauling gravel. At about noon she stopped for lunch, then got back to work hauling rock. Later that afternoon, just as she was sitting back to relax and appreciate her work after finishing up, she heard the telltale sounds of a crowd's applause back toward where she'd done the interview. She stormed down the mountain angrily, only to be greeted by cheers when she came out of the forest to address whatever was happening. Before she could get her bearings, however, she heard a familiar chain of grunts and growls and espied a bear nearby, a dandy-looking man behind it with a microphone. The crowd that had cheered previously fell into a rapt silence as the man issued a challenge to Peace to beat the bear and prove her worth.
She socked the beast in the face, got nicked by its counterattack, traded blows with it, then pounded its throat in with two strong punches. As it crumpled to the ground in a twitching heap gasping its last breaths, she stormed over to the announcer--who had gone pale and was sputtering--and socked him in the gut. All at once, the crowd seemed to wake up and started to look around confusedly. Someone called the cops while Peace was busy hogtying the announcer, and when they showed up she handed him over before they could say anything and then started dragging the bear into the forest so she could gut it. She was elbow-deep in bear guts when one of the cops caught up with her and gave her a wad of cash for "taking care of Ringleader". She accepted, then spent the rest of her day dealing with the bear carcass. It was a bit early to be saving up furs for the winter, but with the weather as it had been, she figured there would be no harm in doing just that; the meat she immediately roasted so that she could have something to eat other than venison. That evening, she threw both meats into a pot with a can of beans she'd been carrying around for a while and had one of the most filling meals she'd eaten in quite a while.
Meet the Press: Complete.
D-List Bounty: Complete.
"PEACE" carved into mountainside.
"PEACE" Stabilization: 100%.
Gravel Creation: 100%.
Gravel Transportation: 100%.
Gravel Filling: 100%.
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 10:53 am
Gil was broken out of his contemplation when Accalia started speaking again. Well, at least it sounded like he wasn't going to have to worry about any sort of punishment for the moment. Though he was sure trying to be nicer to the Wardens was going to feel a lot like a punishment. The praise, however, was exceedingly welcome. He'd been having doubts about his actions recently, a bit disturbed by how violent he had become. Encouragement from the top of the totem pole in his new family went a long way towards assuaging those concerns and restored a lot of self worth. Suddenly it occurred to him that he really needed to stop getting lost in thought while in conversation, especially when he was talking with Accalia.
"I..." Gil hesitated for just a moment, considering asking for that hug, before reaffirming his earlier "best not" decision, "No. I don't have anything else. Good luck with the new one, I hope he turns out to be worth all the whining he's doing. See you around."
Gilgamesh figured he should stick around until Accalia and Stephen left, in case he was needed to help move the paraplegic. He didn't want to directly offer his help in case it was taken as implying she needed it in front of the newest addition to the Sons of b***h, which wouldn't do and was likely the furthest thing from the truth. Better to wait for her to initiate so that it could be framed as an order. With that in mind he simply leaned against the nearest tree, making himself available for the order that may or may not be coming.
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 8:06 pm
Peace didn't know what to do with herself. Her monument was done, her territory marked, and she had food and shelter. It had been a very long time since she'd been in one place for so long, and she was kind of at a loss for what she should be doing. What was more, word must have gotten out about her taking out a bear in front of a crowd, since she hadn't seen or heard anyone all day. Was the sense of anxiety she felt normal? She needed to do something, to move. Halfway through the morning, she went for a jog. Then, after lunch, she went for a swim in the river and baked dry on a large rock. Eventually she started heading toward the city for her afternoon martial arts class. If this was how things were going to be, she might have to try and get into extra classes, maybe speed things along with regard to her training. That or get a day job.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 11:23 am
While Peace was on the way home, she felt a slow chill come over her. The farther she got from the city, the colder it got, dropping to wintry temperatures after just the short trip to her campsite. Once back, Peace quickly stoked a fire and wrapped herself in the furs she'd collected, mutely thankful that she'd had the idea to make a lean-to, as it was not only protecting her from the breeze but also trapping a small portion of the heat from the fire. She fell asleep swaddled in furs in the halo emanating from her campfire.
The next was bitterly cold, but there was almost no wind. Snow fell slowly in giant, fluffy flakes. For a while, Peace watched as they simply vanished in the updraft from her fire. It was calm and quiet on her mountain, just as she liked it. Almost suspiciously so, but Peace was an idiot and thus did not honestly suspect illusions were at play, even if the thought had crossed her mind. At the very least, the illusion portrayed the world exactly as she expected it to look following the weather patterns of the previous night, and there didn't seem to be any malice behind it, so she wouldn't have been very bothered even if the scenery were fake. It was like getting wrapped up in a movie.
The pit she'd been sleeping in was starting to wear on her, prompting her to spend more nights aboveground than she'd originally planned. Whenever it rained the pit got weirdly squelchy and it almost felt like she was sleeping in her own grave. With nothing better to do, she made up her mind to fill it in. After that took all of half an hour, she busied herself with expanding her lean-to, making a second section at an angle to the first so that her campfire had a crescent of shelters around it, surrounded on one side by the lean-to arc and on the other by the thick trunks of fallen trees. It was when she realized the second lean-to had only taken her about 45 minutes to complete that she really wished she knew how to trap animals for food. With all this downtime, she really needed something to do.
Eventually she collected her pack and furs and walked toward the city for her extra lessons.
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Ergo War generated a random number between
20 and 200 ...
199!
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 5:18 pm
Peace walked back from her martial arts lessons and only saw a couple of people loitering on the outskirts of the city, none of whom were especially close to her plot of land. The walk back through the trees was rather quiet, too, as though fame had delivered her into a realm of calm and quiet rather than the typical alternative. She settled down to sleep with a small fire crackling away next to her.
The following morning, Peace went on a stroll through the woods near her camp in search for some fruit. She didn't end up finding anything edible, but she did stumble across a neat-looking hollow spot in the side of a river. It wasn't someplace she wanted to sleep in or linger too long in, but it was a cool hole nonetheless.
At around midday, Peace headed back to her mountain and grabbed a light lunch, then walked toward the city on a whim. She sat around just within the treeline for a while without seeing anyone,
but eventually someone in a pickup truck rolled up and stopped in front of her. The lady inside was older and spoke with the gravelly tone of a frequent smoker. Peace was expecting trouble, but the lady just asked if she would cut firewood. When Peace agreed, the lady also asked if she would cut some wood for a friend, which the amateur wood chopper had no reason to deny. At the same time, she figured she'd punch the logs apart, to the apparent entertainment of her customers. Two hours and a sizable pile of wood later, Peace was up some cash and had killed enough time to justify heading into the city.
Shake Your Money Maker x2: Complete.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 5:48 pm
Peace wandered back toward the outskirts of town, but rather than heading for her own territory, she headed toward Gil's. She made sure to tread somewhat loudly so he could easily hear her coming, or at the very least hear her wandering in a random direction through the dense forest that characterized his section of the wilderness and come find her. She wondered what game they could play if they found each other, eventually settling on chess. She wasn't good at it, she thought, but had a hankering for it nonetheless.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 7:45 pm
Gil watched Accalia collect the new one without any issue, feeling a little stupid for even waiting around. As she left, Gil returned his attention to monitoring his territory. He didn't want to go back to his tree until he'd sufficiently distracted himself from his recent turmoils. He'd planned on finding someone to fight, having some anger to focus on instead of whatever else he would be feeling, but the only disturbance he could find in his territory was one which certainly didn't warrant a violent response. Leaping from tree to tree, Gil eventually ran across Peace meandering through his territory. Hopping down to ground level, he asked what she needed and was answered by the brandishing of a chess set. Well, it wasn't the type of distraction he'd set out to find, but it was certainly welcome. Gil led the woman deeper into his territory, to a relatively flat knoll where it would be easier to play.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 10:04 am
Peace was quite delighted to run into the boy, more so when he seemed up to the task of playing a game of chess. She followed him to the knoll, then set up the game right up until the last white rook, which was missing. To any bystanders, the situation probably looked ridiculous: a woman in a terrible shrine maiden cosplay wearing two deer pelts--one wrapped around her shoulders and the other around her waist--and a bear pelt on her back, playing a game of chess with a teenage boy with quite possibly the most flamboyant hat ever seen and a bear pelt over otherwise fairly normal clothes.
In any case, Peace set about finding a relatively smooth pebble to use for the rook, but all she was pulling up were dirt clumps and seed shells. Eventually she found the bleached white skull of a mouse which, as it met her criteria for smoothness and color, she plopped down on the board after wiping off the dirt. She then picked up a white and a black pawn, shuffled them around behind her back and out of the boy's sight, then held out two closed hands toward him.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 6:04 pm
Gil felt just a bit of trepidation at seeing the impromptu rook that Peace had chosen. He wasn't particularly squeamish, but there was a health concern. Considering it had already been bleached white, however, he figured the risk was already minimized. It did get him thinking about something he could do for his quiet friend after they were finished here, though. His whittling abilities were not insubstantial, and this would be a good excuse to make something without the inherent guilt he sometimes felt when making something without any real reason for it. He always felt like he was wasting the wood in such cases, even though he already restricted himself to already fallen limbs for his material.
Besides, it was coming up on a year since they had met (when his older friend had saved him from wandering the wilderness alone). This was an excellent option for a gift for her. It could be surprisingly hard to shop for someone who chose to wear clothes she found laying around or made after killing the animal it used to be, and who lived in a cave with no need for furniture, and perhaps most importantly, couldn't talk to inform him of anything she may be interested in outside of her daily routine. Before now he'd been looking into something like a new shovel, or a pickaxe. Whittling her a new white rook would be much better. Gil pointed to Peace's left hand, silently hoping he got white so that he could examine the extant white rook closely before attempting to create its match later.
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Ergo War rolled 1 20-sided dice:
13
Total: 13 (1-20)
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 7:04 pm
Peace opened her hand to reveal... a black pawn! It would be her turn first to play the side with the mouse skull rook, though naturally Gil could get a closer look if he took it quickly. The pawns were placed on the board and Peace took a seat on the white side, then made her opening move. It was a bold plan, perhaps, but she was hardly the person for strategy. Then again, if her confidence and air of bravado and swagger were any indication, she just might have known what the heck she was doing in a game of chess.
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