Re: QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 1: Godsworn Valley]
06-28-2012, 02:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-21-2016, 09:32 AM by seedy.)
Originally posted on MSPA by crepuscularDissembler.
Amaranth trudged through the undergrowth, stumbling as her feet invariably found the uneven footing of roots. The problem with going off the beaten path was pretty obvious at this point. Lacking a machete, she was forced to push past every branch, and this is to say nothing of her clothing. It had been perfect for the climate earlier, but that was before she tried to march through woodlands. Now it was sweltering, and she needed a break. She sat down, and-
HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE? THERE ARE STRANGE THINGS AND THIS PLACE TASTES BAD AND I[/color]
piercing cries, sounding like a distressed youth but
DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND I'M HUNGRY HELLLLLP I'M A
not quite right so loud it almost
GIRL SO YOU HAVE TO HELP! COME ON PLEASE
shut off
HELP ME PLEASE YOU'RE
thou
OUT THERE RIGHT?! HELP
gh
HELP HELP HELP
t
Amaranth panted. That had been...disturbing. Today had been a long day of shocks, and then this sudden and worrisome call for aid out of nowhere and inside her head...well, it was a good thing she had more control than others. The voice continued ranting, but after the initial cry it was manageable enough.
She weighed her options, but only briefly. Unnaturally delivered or not, it was a call for help from what sounded like a young girl, and it was her duty to aid her. Due as much to actual selflessness as plant-related ulterior motives, although Amaranth would not have really considered them separate. After all, to her converting someone was in their best interests.
She never even considered that the child might not even be human.
Chaete had calmed down slightly, although that was as much due to the fact that you can only yell for so long (even when it's psychic yelling) as actual intent to focus. She continued her slow journey forwards, periodically sending out small pings of slightly calmer entreaties.
Of course, despite her best efforts she could hardly outpace her pursuers, with their physiological advantages. Luckily for her, they were not accustomed to chasing prey in these forests, and their approach over the dry leaves and twigs covering the ground was hardly the silence others might have produced. Unluckily for her, her body was just as badly adapted to hiding in a mass of green as it was to fast and undetectable travel over land.
There was a long moment of silence as the two parties considered each other.
Well, physical silence. Chaete's distress signals, still believed by her to not be audible to other species, were back to a maximum urgency.
Chaete, for her part, was more or less frozen to the spot. It was perhaps a reflex from ages and species past, their instincts contributing in an unfortunately unuseful way to her present dilemma.
Whatever the hunters had been about to do, they were distracted by the sound of quickly approaching footsteps. One or two of the harpoon guns present was pointed in their general direction, as a figure in a nunlike robe burst out of the foliage, shield at the ready, into the semi-clearing
Amaranth had dropped any attempt at quiet movement when she heard the girl's voice speaking of soldiers with weapons, and charged forward. Of course, she encountered a group of men dressed for seafaring and, well, a monsterish being where she expected to find a young girl. She would be trying to reconcile these two ideas if the efficient-looking weapons pointed at her weren't commanding the majority of her attention.
While the hunters had no idea how to deal with a bright red man-sized thing, they certainly understood how to capture a human. And this small bit of competence gave them confidence enough to try and control the situation. Surely rope would do as well for the cowering thing before them as the unfamiliar soldier? Men stepped towards them both threateningly.
This was frightening enough in the situation to trigger something else, and Chaete did the space worm equivalent of raising her hackles to make herself look big/getting ready to escape.
Namely, she flared her mouth fully outwards.
The mildly disconcerting being suddenly turned into a full-fledged hellbeast with more teeth than they had birthdays. The two hunters approaching with rope had to fumble confusedly for their harpoons, while the three standing guard loosed their bolts immediately. Two hit the ground where Chaete had been a moment ago, and the third buried itself near Amaranth.
Chaete had leapt forward into space and created a hole in the brief moment of sheer, pantswetting shock afforded by her display, and thudded to the ground slithering, finally abasing herself to the level of a serpent as pure panic took over.
Amaranth was equally shocked at this moment, both by the teeth and the sudden disappearance. The harpoons rather snapped her out of it, and she clubbed the man closest to her with her shield and deflected the remaining harpoon bolt with it in one smooth motion. Two ran after her while the others reloaded, and she ran towards the strange opening. She began releasing pollen to induce vertigo and nausea.
Running through, she immediately dodged off to the side of the hole, and managed to catch the first man that came through it from the side. The other clubbed her head with the harpoon gun, which was not a bad close-range weapon at all.
She spun dizzily, but he spun a bit more.
However, while her odds against two weren't too bad, she couldn't keep up against four. She moved backwards from the men and considered the surroundings. Pine, and very dry from the looks of it. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the second portal she had expected from the thing's behavior so far.
Amaranth grabbed one of the flares from her stolen backpack and pulled the tab that started the reaction, throwing it into the dry brush near the men.
She ran, as the trees caught faster than she could run, and threw herself through the portal, dropping her shield to the side to land in a roll.
She could see the red thing a few feet away, apparently as exhausted as she was. She sat down, briefly resting before risking another negative encounter.
Amaranth trudged through the undergrowth, stumbling as her feet invariably found the uneven footing of roots. The problem with going off the beaten path was pretty obvious at this point. Lacking a machete, she was forced to push past every branch, and this is to say nothing of her clothing. It had been perfect for the climate earlier, but that was before she tried to march through woodlands. Now it was sweltering, and she needed a break. She sat down, and-
HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE? THERE ARE STRANGE THINGS AND THIS PLACE TASTES BAD AND I[/color]
piercing cries, sounding like a distressed youth but
DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND I'M HUNGRY HELLLLLP I'M A
not quite right so loud it almost
GIRL SO YOU HAVE TO HELP! COME ON PLEASE
shut off
HELP ME PLEASE YOU'RE
thou
OUT THERE RIGHT?! HELP
gh
HELP HELP HELP
t
Amaranth panted. That had been...disturbing. Today had been a long day of shocks, and then this sudden and worrisome call for aid out of nowhere and inside her head...well, it was a good thing she had more control than others. The voice continued ranting, but after the initial cry it was manageable enough.
She weighed her options, but only briefly. Unnaturally delivered or not, it was a call for help from what sounded like a young girl, and it was her duty to aid her. Due as much to actual selflessness as plant-related ulterior motives, although Amaranth would not have really considered them separate. After all, to her converting someone was in their best interests.
She never even considered that the child might not even be human.
Chaete had calmed down slightly, although that was as much due to the fact that you can only yell for so long (even when it's psychic yelling) as actual intent to focus. She continued her slow journey forwards, periodically sending out small pings of slightly calmer entreaties.
Of course, despite her best efforts she could hardly outpace her pursuers, with their physiological advantages. Luckily for her, they were not accustomed to chasing prey in these forests, and their approach over the dry leaves and twigs covering the ground was hardly the silence others might have produced. Unluckily for her, her body was just as badly adapted to hiding in a mass of green as it was to fast and undetectable travel over land.
There was a long moment of silence as the two parties considered each other.
Well, physical silence. Chaete's distress signals, still believed by her to not be audible to other species, were back to a maximum urgency.
Chaete, for her part, was more or less frozen to the spot. It was perhaps a reflex from ages and species past, their instincts contributing in an unfortunately unuseful way to her present dilemma.
Whatever the hunters had been about to do, they were distracted by the sound of quickly approaching footsteps. One or two of the harpoon guns present was pointed in their general direction, as a figure in a nunlike robe burst out of the foliage, shield at the ready, into the semi-clearing
Amaranth had dropped any attempt at quiet movement when she heard the girl's voice speaking of soldiers with weapons, and charged forward. Of course, she encountered a group of men dressed for seafaring and, well, a monsterish being where she expected to find a young girl. She would be trying to reconcile these two ideas if the efficient-looking weapons pointed at her weren't commanding the majority of her attention.
While the hunters had no idea how to deal with a bright red man-sized thing, they certainly understood how to capture a human. And this small bit of competence gave them confidence enough to try and control the situation. Surely rope would do as well for the cowering thing before them as the unfamiliar soldier? Men stepped towards them both threateningly.
This was frightening enough in the situation to trigger something else, and Chaete did the space worm equivalent of raising her hackles to make herself look big/getting ready to escape.
Namely, she flared her mouth fully outwards.
The mildly disconcerting being suddenly turned into a full-fledged hellbeast with more teeth than they had birthdays. The two hunters approaching with rope had to fumble confusedly for their harpoons, while the three standing guard loosed their bolts immediately. Two hit the ground where Chaete had been a moment ago, and the third buried itself near Amaranth.
Chaete had leapt forward into space and created a hole in the brief moment of sheer, pantswetting shock afforded by her display, and thudded to the ground slithering, finally abasing herself to the level of a serpent as pure panic took over.
Amaranth was equally shocked at this moment, both by the teeth and the sudden disappearance. The harpoons rather snapped her out of it, and she clubbed the man closest to her with her shield and deflected the remaining harpoon bolt with it in one smooth motion. Two ran after her while the others reloaded, and she ran towards the strange opening. She began releasing pollen to induce vertigo and nausea.
Running through, she immediately dodged off to the side of the hole, and managed to catch the first man that came through it from the side. The other clubbed her head with the harpoon gun, which was not a bad close-range weapon at all.
She spun dizzily, but he spun a bit more.
However, while her odds against two weren't too bad, she couldn't keep up against four. She moved backwards from the men and considered the surroundings. Pine, and very dry from the looks of it. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the second portal she had expected from the thing's behavior so far.
Amaranth grabbed one of the flares from her stolen backpack and pulled the tab that started the reaction, throwing it into the dry brush near the men.
She ran, as the trees caught faster than she could run, and threw herself through the portal, dropping her shield to the side to land in a roll.
She could see the red thing a few feet away, apparently as exhausted as she was. She sat down, briefly resting before risking another negative encounter.