Melvin's golem stepped into the room, and he took a deep mental breath at seeing the smiling face once again. He was never good when it came to instincts. Unlike Death, Life was theories, data, and testing. It did not fly by on just pure instincts and hunches. If it wasn't testing brute strength, Melvin also felt out of place testing instincts. It wasn't his strong suit and not a course of action he liked relying on.
In the end, he just accounted this all to pure luck - and his luck was never EVER the best.
He turned to look at Horace. "Thanks for coming along. I haven't gotten through this course yet after all this time."
The Semblance of Unit
WE ARE HALLOWEEN
Death Hunter DEATHSWEEPER
General Information The large stone cavern with the tiled floor and large yellow smiley face is likely familiar to at least several trainees, and may even feature in a few nightmares from time to time. Welcome to Deathsweeper, the training course that may only be attempted via c-type golem, and often acts as a testing ground for the Life Division's more painful creations. Stealth and detecting imminent danger are vital for Death Hunters and anyone who has to spend extended amounts of time near Caelius. The Deathsweeper chamber is full of hidden traps that only the finest of survival instincts can survive unscathed.
If you fail: you get to once again relive the sensation of dying. Painfully and sometimes quite strangely.
If you win: you have survived stepping 5 tiles into the room. Anything further is purely for peen and bragging rights.
Mechanics roll 1 d10 check for hp loss and death decide whether or not to use your bonuses if you survive, repeat. roll list: the traps are ICly constantly changing, so feel free to get creative as to what exactly those traps are! -50% HP is off your full HP, so if you hit -50% twice, then you are 100% KO'd
01. horrible death 02. - 50% HP 03. live 04. live 05. - 50% HP 06. - 50% HP 07. horrible death 08. - 50% HP 09. live 10. horrible death
Bonus Mechanics This bonus is consumable. All participants get a flag, this flag will allow your character to notice something about the area they're stepping into. OOCly this means you can adjust your rolled number, up or down, by one point. Instinctive moves are used in the same manner as flags. These are stackable, so if you have 1 flag + 1 instinctive move, you can use them up in order to adjust your roll by two.
(If you roll a 1, you may not move your number down to 0, -1, or 10. And 10 cannot be adjusted to 1 or 11.)
Trainees: 1 flag Death Trainees: 1 flag + 1 instinctive move Hunters: 1 flag + 1 instinctive move Death Hunters: 1 flag + 2 instinctive moves
Horace gave Melvin a grateful smile. "No problem! I've been wanting to try the course, but I couldn't think of anyone to go with and I didn't want to do it alone." Curious, he looked around, giving the weird smiley face a skeptical look. Horace stretched, wondering how even golems got kinks in their muscles.
"So is it just like minesweeper, only with more death?"
He forced a grin, already worried. "Yeah, except when that mine goes off, you explode with it. It's a real rough number, and to keep trying means to keep dying over and over. It makes you exhausted." He sighed before taking a deep breath and straightening out his back.
"Welp, wish me luck." And he took a step.
Just as he said that, a row of spikes shot up and Melvin jumped to the side - which only resulted in a hatch overhead opening and spilling rocks on him. He covered his head with his arms but by the time the rocks were done falling, his golem was torn up.
Crawling out of the pile, he shoved a few stones away. "Off to a great ******** start!"
Status
Step: 1
HP: 25/50 Flags: 1 USING NOW Instinctive moves: 0
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 10-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-10)
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:45 pm
"Break a leg!" he called out as Melvin stepped forward. Horace immediately regretted his word choice when spikes and rocks assaulted his friend. Er... his friend in a golem.
He rubbed the side of his head. "I, uh, didn't mean that literally." Holding his breath, Horace stepped forward, feet tapping daintily at the tile. He waited. And waited.
Melvin stood on the rocks, looking around at the stained tiles and trying to see which ones has any visible signs of murder.
"Let's hope I just break a leg only."
He hopped down from the pile of rocks - and with a click, a anvil feel down and landed on him, breaking bone and muscle with a sickening crunch. Nothing but twitching limbs and blood could be seen under the stained metal.
After a while, a new golem came out, a exact match to the golem from before.
"Ugh. Dying is the worst." He said, cracking his back. "It's like being kicked in the stomach and crotch at the same time." He still felt the lingering pain and he looked up, skittish of anything dropping or clicking sounds.
"Hope you're doing okay." He said as he took a step and found he was alright. He gave a big sigh of relief. "Okay, better this time around."
Status
Step: 1
HP: 50/50 Flags: 1 Instinctive moves: 0
MoonKitsune
Romantic Exhibitionist
Offline
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 10-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-10)
The Semblance of Unity
Predestined Victim
Offline
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 10:06 am
Horace winced and almost started forward to help Melvin as his friend was mercilessly crushed. It was just a golem, just a golem, not him. He breathed deeply and waited. In minutes, Melvin, well, golem Melvin popped back out and Horace relaxed. "That nearly gave me a heartattack, Melvin. Yeah, I'm not going to say that phrase this time." He watched Melvin intently as he stepped forward. Safe. Ok, Horace, you can do this.
With a tentative step, he inched forward, pressing both feet to the tile. Out of nowhere (because how exactly was this rigged?), a heavy tree truck swung forward, striking him in the arm with a bane-jarring crunch. A bone-breaking crunch. It was funny how even golems could blanch. Horace's arm dangled uselessly at his side, but he was alive. Shakily, his raised his free hand and gave Melvin a thumb's up.
He turned around. "Of course it hurts. It feels like half my body is boiling!" He called back before checking around him.
He moved to the tile that had the least amount of splattered acid and found - it did nothing.
The Lifer put both hands together, looked up, and muttered a thank you.
Status
Step: 3
HP: 25/50 Flags: 1 Instinctive moves: 0
MoonKitsune
Romantic Exhibitionist
Offline
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 10-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-10)
The Semblance of Unity
Predestined Victim
Offline
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:13 pm
"Sorry, stupid question!" Horace took a step and there wasn't even time to scream as a thousand tiny darts flew from the walls to pierce his twitching golem. The golem collapsed slowly, falling forward onto the floor.
Status
Step: 4
HP: deads Flags: 1 Instinctive moves: 0
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 10-sided dice:
9Total: 9 (1-10)
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:33 pm
After several minutes, Horace re-emerged. He shuddered, looking at the remains of golems that looked like him and Melvin. This damn course would give him nightmares. Ge wobbled unsteadily back out onto the board.
"This is the weirdest training course... I tried Life's, but we did it with hotsauce consequences."
"Hot sauce consequences? What does that even mean? And who did you do the course with?"
He took a step to the right and braced himself, squeezing his eyes shut before, slowly, he opened them. He gave a nervous little laugh. He never was this lucky. Something bad had to be happening soon.
"I went with Rep. We spent forever in that room failing the course. By the time we both succeeded, we were too full of tranquilizers that we couldn't make it up the steps." He smiled at the memory of his old friend, and tried not to let the aching in his chest get to him.
Status
Step: 4
HP: 25/50 Flags: 1 Instinctive moves: 0
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 10-sided dice:
2Total: 2 (1-10)
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 9:59 pm
"Yeah, we made it so not only did you get tranq'd, but had to do a shot of hot sauce, too. Eventually, it was too much - we gave up." He grinned widely, chuckling. "Did the course with my bro, Dylon. Couldn't taste anything for the rest of the day." Slowly, he inched his way forward like the tile was a skittish date on prom night. Not that Horace had ever been to a prom. He wondered if Deus did any 'military ball' type things.
Flames sprouted up and he squeaked, jumping away. Grumbling, he beat a bit of flame out of his clothing, "I dunno how you did it - the friends with Rep thing. Maybe he'll come back around sometime. Probably misses you."
"Hot sauce?" He laughed outright, staring at him. "Are you serious? How is that even a punishment? I pour that stuff over whatever slop they serve in the cafeteria. It's the only way to make that stuff bearable." He would have owned both of them in that fight.
"I don't talk to Dylon much, but ...he did stop me from doing something stupid at Rep's bar. He really helped me out. He seems like a very good man." He was a bit embarrassed that he gave the wrong impression of himself to the hunter.
Wincing at the flames, he looked at Horace. "You have to wonder if the members in Death are just eating popcorn watching us fry."
With a held breath, he took the one step that would decide if he passed the course or not, and just as he heard a click as his foot pressed on the tile, he jumped to the side and covered his head.
The tile that he jumped away from opened to a small pool of acid that bubbled and frothed. The tile Melvin was on - did nothing.
For a moment, he just waited before he removed his hands and then slowly counted. "Wait..." He counted 5 on his fingers and then looked around to point to each tile he went on. "Did I just finish this?"
