Lilith blinked. Blinked again, tilting her head tot he side as she regarded the screeching bat-corpse. The sounds it was making--yes, they were strange, and seemingly inhuman, and it took her a moment to recognize, but--
"Sir," she stepped up next to Aquamarine, "I think it's communicating in Morse code." She shrugged her shoulders. "My father is ex-Navy. He taught it to us as kids," back when he had liked to pretend that they were a happy family and he loved his wife and children more than he loved Jim, Jack, and Jose, "and I think--?"
She thought back, over what she's heard. "I think it might have said it knows that youma, so it should be helpful? I'm not entirely sure I've got it all right, it's been a while since I was in practice."
Chalcanthite looked towards where the paths converged, he would give a status update to the other General once they met up. It also looked like everyone else on the central path was more or less ok at this point as well. “That feather I saw seems interesting, it may be connected to what youma we are supposed to be looking for. Did any of you see anything odd as well? Either way it looks like it is about time to meet up with part of the main team so we can figure out our next steps.”
The only thing that bothered him at this point was the status of the last part of the team but that path could also meet up at a later point as well. As he got closer to the other team though, he waved a welcome towards them.
'General Aquamarine, you're going to want to come to see this." Lavendulan pointed at a set of tracks on the ground. "I believe they might belong to the changling. See here..."
The half youma followed the marks left by a long trailing body then stopped when they shifted into a set of feet. "They're faint, but I'm almost positive it came this way."
Guine
Proximity
Sunshine Alouette
Really really short tag, I'm sorry. I'm exhausted right now and about to go back to bed. I woke up realizing I forgot to post.
Noir Songbird
Proximity
Indigo_Plateau
Proximity
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:03 am
Western Path
Quote:
The tracks were faint, but if Lavendulan followed them, she would find that they pointed toward the central and eastern paths before disappearing. How they disappeared was up to question — the ground was still soft enough to accept her own prints further ahead.
Radon stared back at Aquamarine, heeding his ask and his command, though it shook its head. A startlingly quick motion, one that sent more clumps of desiccated skin and hair showering down on the crags below. It cocked an ear in curiosity. Someone was shouting down below, and while human ears perhaps couldn't perceive it, Radon had. It uttered a confused warble.
One of them (Lilith) could translate, and to her interpretation, Radon nodded glissando quick. ".. - / ..-. . .-.. .-.. .-.-.-"
Its great bat wings opened slightly, enough to expose more of its body, and the creature shivered, as if shaking more fur loose. The jaws opened and clicked shut. It blinked, clear membrane sliding back over the exposed eyes, and it waited for Aquamarine to move on.
Central and Eastern Paths
Quote:
The area was quiet as the two teams merged. Luckily, nothing befell either of them, and the only youma in the area was still Radon on the western path.
Roselite's discovery gave Jet's youma something to track. In that ichorous, furry mess, there were two distinct scents to the youma — one belonging to the ichor, and another belonging to the fur. The scent Arles followed was that of the fur. Part of that scent went backward in the direction that they came, likely a story for how the creature got to that location. The scent also wound toward the western path.
It was still possible to reach the western path from their joined location. Further up, one of the interlaced paths wound around and back, and presumably connected with the western path where it ascended. No other paths looked to be going skyward.
Journey's End
Quote:
This is the end of the prompts that will contain new clues. However, this is not the end of the thread! It looks like there's something going on in one of the other threads that will impact this one…
The teams have everything they need to figure out where the monster is, and what it looks like now. Don't worry if they don't figure it out right away! The answer will become clear if they don't. Please continue to quote me for interactions and continue investigating the clues that they have! I promise you guys are right on top of the answer!
Lavendulan continued to follow the tracks towards the central and eastern paths until suddenly the footprints stopped.
Truly puzzled by this conundrum, she stood there for a moment, eyes scanning the ground to see if the tracks picked up a few feet away. Think Laven, think... What would Wolframite do in this situation? Between the two of them, he was the tracker. Anything she knew was taught by him and admittedly it wasn't much mainly because her senses were not as strong as his; more specifically his sense of smell and acute hearing.
"Where are you when I need you..." She spoke quietly to herself as she took a few steps towards the direction it seemed to be heading. But when no more tracks were revealed Laven turned to head back toward her group only to realize that the ground she had walked upon was still soft enough to have left an impression which meant, either it shifted again; perhaps to something smaller so its weight wouldn't leave any steps, or to something with... "Wings..."
Realization struck her like a bolt of lightning and as her gaze settled upon the Bat Youma Laven stood there almost paralyzed on the spot.
These tracks were likely a diversion, something to make them think that their comrades were in danger and that the changling was heading their way. When in fact it likely never left this area. Despite Lilith's translation of those odd-sounding clicks, Laven felt more than sure that Radon didn't just know who they were looking for, but that it was who they were looking for.
Aqua's instructions were very clear; do not engage unless it attacks first. But having already been picked up by an owl beast once before and dropped from above a tree line once before; Lavendulan was not willing to let either him, or the corrupt get snatched up like she had been.
And so, she walked as quickly as she dared without giving the youma a reason to be alarmed by her movement then reached out to grab hold of Aqua's sleeve. "I need your expert opinion on something. Can you please come over here with me?" There was fear in her icy blue eyes when she hazarded a glance up at the youma then over to Lilith before motioning with her head to where she had been following the tracks.
First things first, she needed to get them away from the youma, and regroup with the other two lieutenants then let Aqua decide what the next step should be. Her gut may be wrong, but it was a risk she wasn't willing to take, especially in the Rift.
Guine
Sunshine Alouette
Noir Songbird
Indigo_Plateau
MoonKitsune
Mention
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2021 12:48 pm
General Aquamarine - western path side-eying this here bat youma HP: 100/100
That a Senshi could translate Morse code was not as strange to Aquamarine as it might be to others. Most of his education had been spent on utterly useless pursuits, symbols of refinement (or what some perceived as refinement) rather than subjects that might actually be practical.
At least with this, they might be getting somewhere.
“Keep translating,” Aquamarine told Lilith. (A needless command, he was sure, but it was the closest he could get to, “I appreciate the assistance.”)
With a sigh, Aquamarine summoned his communication device, though he did not yet pull the entirety of his attention away from the bat youma (Radon). There was a message waiting for him, from Jet.
Aquamarine spoke his response. “Jet, we might have something related to that up here. A bat youma. It’s losing clumps of its fur.”
Unsurprising that they’d find it on a lower path, then, with it raining down as the bat youma shifted.
A hand grabbed his sleeve. On instinct, Aquamarine almost jerked away, but he steadied himself, glaring at the one who touched him (Lavendulan). If their mission weren’t so perilous already, he would have shoved her away from him. Already she’d worked her way onto his bad side (not a difficult feat to accomplish, but the unsolicited touch only boosted his ire).
The only thing that saved her from an explosion of temper was the obvious fear in her eyes, and what she’d found. Aquamarine took cautious steps closer to the tracks, gaze still steady upon the youma, unwilling to let it out of his sight.
“We have tracks,” he said into his communicator. To the half-youma Captain, he added absently, “Good eye,” then followed the tracks until their end.
His suspicions went the way of hers, and Aquamarine eyed the bat-like youma (Radon) again. To Lavendulan he said, "Don't panic." Into his communicator, Aquamarine continued his last message, “We can only follow the tracks so far before they end, which means whatever left them either fell or flew. Put your earring on, Jet.”
Aquamarine did the same. While he waited for the mental link to kick in, he continued, “Kamacite,” the name brought a sour look to his face, but Aquamarine managed to speak to the Corrupt Senshi without tacking on an insult, “What’s your status below?”
Lilith gave Aquamarine a brief nod. She didn't need politeness or thanks; his sharp-tongued efficiency was honestly sort of relieving. At least he wasn't trying to pretend to be nice to her or something stupid like that, when they were just on a mission together.
"It says," she regarded Radon thoughtfully, "'it fell.' Our quarry, I assume." Simple, to the point, as the youma's communication had been. She wondered if it had the wherewithal to be more complex than that.
Lilith gave Lavendulan a quirked eyebrow; her presence hadn't exactly been requested, directly, but she was choosing to interpret the look the Captain gave her in a way that let her trail after her superiors and learn more.
She looked down at the tracks, and then back at Radon. Her eyes narrowed, as the conclusions clicked together in her head.
A shapeshifter. That had turned into something with wings. And how convenient that there was a winged thing right here. Perhaps it was a coincidence, sure. And perhaps Radon was simply lazy and a witness. But perhaps not.
Nothing down here could be trusted.
She was silent as Aquamarine contacted the General and Eternal who were also helping run the mission. It wasn't her place to speak up and interrupt; her information might not even be useful, if Radon was trying to trick them. She'd given it to Aquamarine; he would do as he needed to with it.
Since it was the only lead they had, Jet gestured to Arles to head back the way they came to track the scent, barely more than a shadow along the path. He didn’t need to be with Arles to know what was going on, and if Arles did happen to see anything, he could easily connect that image with Jet anyway.
“Let’s keep going forward,” Jet said to General Chalcanthite once they met up. “Did you find anything useful? We lost one of our Lieutenants. He was pulled into a hole somewhere by… something…” Jet scowled, angry that he hadn’t been able to stop it from happening, and that he managed to free himself. “We only found a clump of hair with some blood. Just over there,” he pointed to where Roselite found the fur. “I’m having my youma track down the scent. He can communicate with me if he finds anything.”
He took out his communicator when he heard Aquamarine’s voice. Ah, right, Faustite couldn’t use the text function. Well, hopefully they could pass the word along to him as well. As instructed, Jet took the earring out from subspace to put on and tested it out.
Is it bleeding, too? he asked Aquamarine. If it’s molting or whatever animals do, they don’t usually bleed when they lose their fur, do they? This clump we found has blood, like it was ripped out in a fight.
Sunshine Alouettex
Strickenizedx
mention!
Sara Draconiax
Guine
Crew
Lonely Explorer
Offline
Sunshine Alouette
Eternal Senshi
Offline
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2021 8:10 pm
General Aquamarine HP: 100/100 - western path; bat youma is sus
It fell, Lilith said.
But was that the truth? Aquamarine wasn’t a trusting person by nature; he had his doubts, always. The Rift wasn’t the sort of place to get into the habit of taking anything at its word.
Aquamarine kept his eyes locked on the bat youma, answering Jet’s question by sending an image through the mental link.
Get up here, he thought. Maybe this place is making me even more paranoid, but something doesn’t feel right.
Then came Kamacite’s voice through the communicator.
Quote:
“We made it to the center. There’s some kind of crater, like a youma fell or was dropped from above. We might have that youma under our command right now, but it’s pretty heavily wounded. I don’t think it’s going to last much longer.”
Aquamarine was not built for this sort of thing. Leading missions, commanding teams, he never wanted that for himself even in the early days as a Lieutenant, when he exulted in his newfound power. (Back then, that power was the only thing that made his corruption seem worthwhile.)
Yet here he was, leading part of a mission, commanding a team, however hastily put together it was at the break between paths, facing a youma that seemed more suspicious by the second. His instincts kept screaming that they were all in danger — more so than they already were simply by being in the Rift.
Aquamarine would not sacrifice himself for any of these people, but he didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths either.
Again, Kamacite’s voice came through the communicator.
Quote:
“Did you find anything useful?”
Aquamarine laughed bitterly.
“We’ve found a youma with the appearance of a rather ragged looking bat who might lead us to believe the youma you have under your command is the one we’re looking for. I’m more inclined to believe the bat is lying.”
And there were only so many reasons for it to lie.
Or perhaps Aquamarine really was making paranoid assumptions. The youma they were looking for could have flown off. Or it could have fallen, too, but did not hit the ground like Kamacite’s unfortunate youma companion. The bat could be nothing more than a witness, confused by what it saw, or perhaps not as adept at its method of speech as it needed to be to share information more accurately.
Whatever the case, Aquamarine had no intention of dealing with this alone. Into the communicator again, he said, “Faustite, we might have something here.”
Waiting, cautious still, Aquamarine asked the bat (Radon), “How did it fall?”
He landed and tucked into a roll, sprung back up with the remaining inertia and came to a halt a couple steps away. It was then that he felt it — his overheated burn, searing the parts of him that were still human. Faustite doubled over, wincing, as the communicator rock he deathgripped in his left came to life.
Kamacite, Aquamarine, and Jet. Their voices sounded faint, laden with static. Pain spit accumulated in his mouth, some preamble to what was coming, he was sure, but he spat it over the side. His voice was still raw when he answered the static-laden conversation.
"Didn't get far before we were sabotaged. Found a fur clump, orange-tipped. Changeling thing may have turned into something mammalian. Jet, your dog —" he sucked in another wince, "if we've other samples, can it match the scent?" Few youma molted their appearance so freely as this one; if the Tracking team had found more evidence, then surely it would help confirm that the clump came from their youma and wasn't belonging to a normal one with a shitty dye job.
That Aquamarine might have something was nauseatingly promising. "Careful, then. It knows we're looking."
Agni was unrelenting, but they had to press on — Faustite straightened up into his own painful heat as he started back down the western path. His uniform started to glow at the bottom of his vest. "Come on," he urged, though the fire was sucking his breath away.
Quote:
-25 HP because ouch oof ow he's burning more than usua'
sunshine alouette
phoning aqua. approaching aqua, with cymo if he jumped
shanyume
approaching lavendulan
guine
phoning jet, kama. approaching reidite, with taenite if he jumped
indigo_plateau
approaching nobleite
noir songbird
approaching lilith
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:40 am
The small snack was accurate. Radon watched her (Lilith), membranes closing over its eyes occasionally. She did not seem afraid. None of them seemed to put much stock in what Radon was saying. Then the General (Aquamarine), the Captain that reminded it of Trion (Lavendulan), and the small corrupted thing (Lilith) walked away.
Radon tucked its wings back into itself. Continued to hang upside-down without their interruptions. The membranes closed back over its eyes, though an ear followed the three.
It could not understand what came through the tinny speaker of that device, but Radon could hear their conversation. They thought it lied. It shivered, sending more clumps of hair down below.
Then they were back, and the blonde one questioned it again. Expected a story. Funny, it thought, that this one should want a story when it couldn't understand Radon. When it needed the help of a snack to translate. Radon thought this one beneath a snack, so helpless was it. But it would have its story.
".. - / ..-. . .-.. .-.. / - .... . / .-- .- -.-- / .- .-.. .-.. / - .... .. -. --. ... / ..-. .- .-.. .-.. .-.-.- / .. - / ..-. . .-.. .-.. / .-.. .. -.- . / .- --. . -. - ... / ..-. .- .-.. .-.. .-.-.- / .. - / .-- .- ... / .- - - .- -.-. -.- . -.. / .- -. -.. / - .... . -. / .--. ..- ... .... . -.. .-.-.-" Radon cocked its head, shed the last clump of fur from its skull, and stared at Lavendulan. It wondered why this one bothered to follow the blonde one. Why hadn't it joined Radon instead?
Taenite hissed as he rolled, glad he listened to the wimpy looking Eternal that Cymophane was friends with and cut his hair, otherwise there were so many rocks that his hair could have gotten caught on. He did manage to scrape up his back some in the fall from some crystals that jutted out too far, but he blamed that on the cosmos for letting his back be exposed.
“You okay?” he asked Cymophane as he got back to his feet, but kept his eyes on Faustite who seemed to have suffered more, but it didn’t seem as though it had been the fall. He didn’t bother suggesting to Faustite that he should probably slow down. Not with how angry he already was.
In fact, Taenite held out an arm to keep Cymophane from following Faustite too closely, his eyebrows furrowed with concern for not just the General, but anyone in the vicinity of the ticking time bomb.
Hopefully the others made it out okay and would join up with them momentarily. And hopefully Faustite would be able to cool off before they all went up in flames.
Jumping from a height and landing gracefully was not part of Cymophane’s skill set. (Perhaps he should make it so. Surely there would be ample opportunities to demonstrate it, given the nature of the war and the extent of their powers.) With a hissing wince and an “ow!” followed by several Russian curses, Cymophane came to a stop and stumbled back to his feet.
“What the fuuuuuuuck,” he said, checking himself over for any injuries.
His catsuit, a little torn. His shoulder, a little sore. His hip, a little scraped up, but nothing time and rest wouldn’t resolve.
Cymophane breathed, staring up at a rough approximation of their previous location.
“So much for our team being the safest,” he said. Then, at Taenite’s question, Cymophane answered, “Yeah, I’m good.”
More or less.
Together, they followed after Faustite — several feet behind, at Taenite’s insistence. Cymophane wasn’t about to argue after the harrowing way their part of the mission ended. Faustite was understandably furious. Even Cymophane couldn’t conceal a few errant threads of anger.
“Damn, how does a General ******** up that bad?” Cymophane asked.
And he’d been relieved when Rakovanite first joined them.
Showed how much he knew.
At least he had some great gossip to spread around when they got out of here.
If they got out of here.
Guine
Strickenized
Quote:
Self-imposed fall damage because yikes
Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 8:02 pm
Haymitch - HP 50 - 1d6 - Central Path
He was grateful the rest of the walk was relatively calm. No one fell off the path, no one was stolen by too long arms coming out of holes, no youma tried to eat them. It was almost too quiet for Haymitch's nerves. His claws dug into Lionel's fuku as he crouched into his neck, eyes glancing about. They merged into the eastern path and Lionel asked him a question.
"Well... I guess I have nerves because they're pretty frayed at the moment! I didn't know I could feel this tense but I really hope I'm not hurting you with my grip!" he said with an awkward little chuckle in his voice. Haymitch's tail flicked, curling around Lionel's head and twitching at the last few inches. The group talked about a rather particular looking feather, as well as some particular scent tracks - at least that's what he thought they were talking about - but nothing else tried to eat them.
Haymitch could relax just a little.
Noir Songbird
a-disgruntled-dragon
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a-disgruntled-dragon
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 8:16 pm
Lt. Leifite - HP 50 - 1d6+2 - Eastern Path
They lost no one else as the paths began to merge, and found a few other clues to the potential creature's location. For that, Leifite was thankful. Following General Jet's youma was a little... odd, especially with the tapping thing, but it seemed to help regardless. Perhaps Leifite would find a youma for herself at some point going forward as well.
She listened quietly to the communications, wincing a little at the pain in General Faustite's voice. Whatever happened apparently hadn't been pleasant for them. Soon they'd have a small moment of rest though, and Leifite would make herself useful as necessary. For now, she stayed close to Maikoh.
