Welcome to Gaia! ::

General Information
Maintaining a superior defense is the pride of the Moon Division, defending even at the expense of attacking. However, this can be hard, especially for trainees who just got new magic weapons full of glowing and powers. Thus the Princess Island. At the center of the island sits a princess who will do absolutely nothing to protect herself, and it's up to you to build defenses that will withstand shadowling attacks so she she doesn't die in a horribly realistic manner.

There's four main paths for shadowling's to travel through, and you have 3 types of building materials to create your defenses from: straw bales, wood, and bricks. The sturdier the material, the sturdier the barrier, but the fewer you can build in the allotted time. After a set amount of time, the princess will crush a pumpkin pill, attracting varying amounts of lurking shadowlings. You get to watch helplessly from the observation station, without getting to attack yourself.

These creature are extremely weak and ill formed, coming up against a solid defense they will disperse, but in turn they also weaken said defense. When a defense goes down, they go right to the princess and attack her. Should she survive the wave, you get to go back down, rebuild, and do it again.

If you fail: the princess has died, horribly, and you've wasted a lot of time on this only to look fairly incapable. All things considered? Most pleasant course to fail.

If you win: peen points and bragging rights go to those with the healthiest princess and lasted through the most attack waves.
If you choose to go beyond 5 rounds, switch the enemy dice roll to 4 d20s.

Mechanics

• Your princess has 20 hp
  
• First, roll the strength of you defense, using the dice for whichever building type you choose.
  
  Brick: 4 d12
  Wood: 8 d6
  Hay bales: 12 d4
  
  The order of the die determine the HP for each barrier location. For example, with bricks, rolling 5/6/8/1, would mean that path 1 has 5 HP, path 2 has 6 HP and so on. With a wood roll of 3/3/3/1/2/5/5/2, the first 2 dice would equal the amount of the first path. Brick would be the least math-y of the building materials (you lazy asses.)
  
• Roll 4 d12 for the attacking forces. Once again the order of the dice correspond with the path being affected. Then do the math to determine the status of your defenses and princess.
  Example:
  My defenses are 5/6/8/10
  The attackers are 3/7/3/8
  
  The result defenses are 2/-1/5/2
  Negative numbers are taken off the princesses HP, leaving her at 19 HP.
  
• Go back and rebuild your defenses in the same manner as before, you'll be building on top of old defenses so you add the new defense HP to the remaining defense HP. Negative numbers = 0 HP for the defense, not negative HP.
  
• Minimum rounds to complete the course is 3
  
  Bonus Mechanics
  
• Their defense expertise allows them to build slightly sturdier barriers. This applies to all paths that start at 0 hp. They do not stack. So if you are re-building on a barrier that lasted from an existing round, this bonus does not apply, as it is already still in effect.
  
  
• Trainees: 0 hp bonus
  
• Moon Trainees: +1 hp bonus to each path
  
• Hunters: +1 hp to each path
  
• Moon Hunters: + 2 hp to each path
  

Fresh and green but with more enthusiasm than brains (as long as it wasn't ******** early in the morning...but he was learning to deal with that part too...thanks to coffee) Andy had decided to try out one of the training courses. Without Jordan or Peyton. To tell with that goddamned sempai bullshit. Okay so Allan's way of speaking all peppered with Japanese phrases wasn't horrible to deal with but...Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it could be obnoxious. Andy refused - flat out refused - to use that crap-lingo, even though both of the Sun Hunters he'd been working with said he'd eventually give in. Everyone did.

So he checked his options and decided that saving a princess was more fun than trying to survive a massacre of shadows (crows, shadows...close enough). Only when he arrived there was somebody else there. "Yo." Andy raised a hand in greeting, not sure what division the guy belonged to but thinking maybe...nope. Oh well, he could tell who was Sun so far. The others would come in time, right?

In the recesses of his mind, Rex started up a low growling. Heel, dammit. You do NOT have to growl at every-goddamned-body I meet okay. Jesus Rex...

The former-zombie dog whined but stayed vigilant. Just incase his Boy was wrong.

Andy took the offered hand and gave it a firm shake or two before releasing - it was the Business Shake, or something like that, and he'd learned to do it in one of his high school business classes. "Yep. I'm Andy. Andrew Miller, Sun trainee and Jordan Miller's little brother. Figured it'd be a good idea to start training sooner...rather than later."

Little really wasn't apt to describe Andy, he was six feet currently and still growing! He already stood heads taller than Jordan.

Peyton was tiny too, but she clearly belonged in a way that he himself did not. Basically, Andy had learned rapidly that if someone was wearing the Hunter colors...they were there on purpose. Also, Gale had that faraway talking-to-my-weapon look that Jordy sometimes got when conversing with Ferros. If you weren't supposed to be there, you wouldn't have a weapon, right? Right.

Andy grinned, broad and warm, when Gale seemed to relax some and then further yet when he mentioned Jordan being a good guy. "Would've been here sooner to keep him outta trouble, but..I don't think Rex was around? Something kept me a pod person for a long time." He shrugged, so it had been years, big deal - what mattered was that he was here now.

The offer to go together was met with a little victory dance and a definitive perk-up in the taller Hunter's demeanor. "That'd be awesome, actually. I have no idea what I'm doing. You cool with having me along? I don't wanna cramp your style or anything." I'll even try to not be dead weight, scout's honor.

"Yep." Andy peered at the scenario before them warily for a moment before cocking his head back at Gale. "Jordy's always been like that, I'm glad it hasn't changed." He'd worried that his brother had changed so dramatically they wouldn't mesh now...but so far that hadn't been the case. Yes, Jordan had changed, but it mostly seemed to be in ways that deepened the traits that Andy had grown up knowing.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." He looked out over the training ground again, eyes narrowing just a bit, "This place has a pretty steep learning curve, y'know?"

Being offered to start made the big blond wave his hands comically, "Err...actually, I'd like to watch you, if you don't mind?" He'd even do the thing where he pushed a hand through his hair and then left it for a moment, looking all sheepish.

Andy grinned at Gale's explanation and watched curiously as he built up some brick defenses on the paths. "Well, I'll thank you in advance for helping get me there, 'cause it's all Greek at this point."

After watching his companion set up, Andy gave it a whirl himself. He wasn't so good at the whole constructing things bit; the blond kept going back and forth visually between the two different set-ups and finally leaned back with a shrug. "I guess this is as good as it's getting."

"Now what happens?"

"Shadows suck..." Andy muttered, dusting his fingers off on his jeans and peering at the constructions thoughtfully. Would they hold up? How was this going to go...what the hell constituted a 'win'. "I think a lot of this place is like that. Very disorienting...but the longer you're around the easier it gets. Except the whole 'morning' thing. Never going to get used to being up at the a**-crack of dawn."

Andy watched one path be stripped down to rubble as the beasts gleefully went after his princess; a second was weak but still standing. Two did pretty well, all things considered. He hadn't come out quite as well as Gale, but he wasn't doing too badly. "Not too bad for a first go. I'm sure it gets worse quickly."

"End 'em, I think. Sic Rex on 'em, blow them to bits." Honestly, he did not like shadows...especially not the sorts that apparently had FEAR in 'em and caused problems. Normal shadows weren't bad, but he'd even grown to be wary of those just in case.

Andy watched Gale for a bit with the hay defenses, nodding, then he looked over what was available before choosing the wood and setting about his task. It didn't take too long to put up a completely new barrier on the first path, but shoring up brick with wood was a bit more tricky, but he managed it and stepped away to await the next volley of misshapen shadows.

"Alright you little monsters, come on out. It's chow time!"