RE: Grand Battle (S?) (Round 1: Matmor Atoll)
06-26-2013, 02:05 AM
In the deep, below the Shell Beast's first breach, the remnants of a merfolk tower no longer were. Something else, something alien and Blue, thrummed out and in and through the former debris to the rhythm of a beating heart of crystal. Sari's beacon grew. Intricate weavings of coral unwove into simple hexagons. Delicate mosaics warped and knotted. Strange Blue veins coursed through everything, folding the contours of the world to fit its mathematically-precise arcs and perfect right angles. The stone mirings of the shoal, forced into place by millennia of geological activity, cracked and shifted as their core was struck and churned by this otherworldly infection. They bled gravel into the water.
The very earth groaned. A forking crack in the solid stone, nearly a mile from end to end, shot out from the wound like lightning accompanied by a thunderous pop. A shockwave spread like a ripple in a still pool, and others took note. Sari was not one of them.
From her new position hidden behind this rough tower of coral, Sari held her new gift up to her face. Or rather, she held her arm rather noncommittally up towards the tooth as it floated in front of her. She had emerged into a world and accepted its all-encompassing maelstrom of violence. No sooner had she thought she'd found her place than she'd been approached and rewarded for not fitting in it. There was nuance and purpose in the others' actions that Sari found bewildering. Against a backdrop of visceral carnage, she wanted a moment to study it.
She didn't have time to try, really. An atonal scream that made Sari's head ache blasted from the distance on the opposite side of her concealing pillar. She heard the orange man with green skin bellow some new war cry, followed by the sound of something tearing.
With a wet slap and the ensuing tinkle of coral shards, a merman smashed into the ground a mere twenty feet away from Sari's position. His trident hit the adjacent sand with a solid thunk and embedded itself.
The merman shook his head in pain, then pulled himself up on shaking arms. On spotting Sari, he tensed up and froze. “Clblclk rtchbl hssk!” he demanded of her, authoritatively, looking her up and down.
Sari chimed and approached, slowly, curiously, but stopped a healthy eight feet away. Sensing she wasn't as immediate a threat as his overall situation, the merman turned towards the carnage to the side, hissing and burbling its strange language, inaudible over the din of the battle. Unsatisfied with the lack of response, he reached shakily for his trident, keeping his gaze locked on Sari. Her eyes darted up towards his hand, and then back down to his face. They narrowed.
Sari was not particularly muscular, when discussing the hypothetical bounds of normal for a creature of her gangly shape. That being said, her arms are longer than some people are tall, and the muscle winding its way over the multi-segmented skeleton beneath was apt for the job of propelling that distant mass about with comparative ease. Ease enough that the addition of several more feet of solid metal staff whirling about the pivot point at her shoulder could provide more than sufficient enough force to cave in even a skull evolved to withstand the immense pressures of the deep.
There was a solid clanking sound, followed by a wet gurgle.
Kneeling to pick up something from the red-smeared sand, Sari let out another happy chime. She rose and brought a small object up to her face with a familiar motion. It was followed by Ganger's earlier gift, for comparison. But for the addition of a trailing glob of bloody mess clinging to the new one, she judged them sufficiently similar to be significant. She was on to something! This was important! Sari opened her mouth in a wide smile and sounded out a word. Like the soft tinkle of glass shards, she voiced it.
“Reward!”
The very earth groaned. A forking crack in the solid stone, nearly a mile from end to end, shot out from the wound like lightning accompanied by a thunderous pop. A shockwave spread like a ripple in a still pool, and others took note. Sari was not one of them.
From her new position hidden behind this rough tower of coral, Sari held her new gift up to her face. Or rather, she held her arm rather noncommittally up towards the tooth as it floated in front of her. She had emerged into a world and accepted its all-encompassing maelstrom of violence. No sooner had she thought she'd found her place than she'd been approached and rewarded for not fitting in it. There was nuance and purpose in the others' actions that Sari found bewildering. Against a backdrop of visceral carnage, she wanted a moment to study it.
She didn't have time to try, really. An atonal scream that made Sari's head ache blasted from the distance on the opposite side of her concealing pillar. She heard the orange man with green skin bellow some new war cry, followed by the sound of something tearing.
With a wet slap and the ensuing tinkle of coral shards, a merman smashed into the ground a mere twenty feet away from Sari's position. His trident hit the adjacent sand with a solid thunk and embedded itself.
The merman shook his head in pain, then pulled himself up on shaking arms. On spotting Sari, he tensed up and froze. “Clblclk rtchbl hssk!” he demanded of her, authoritatively, looking her up and down.
Sari chimed and approached, slowly, curiously, but stopped a healthy eight feet away. Sensing she wasn't as immediate a threat as his overall situation, the merman turned towards the carnage to the side, hissing and burbling its strange language, inaudible over the din of the battle. Unsatisfied with the lack of response, he reached shakily for his trident, keeping his gaze locked on Sari. Her eyes darted up towards his hand, and then back down to his face. They narrowed.
Sari was not particularly muscular, when discussing the hypothetical bounds of normal for a creature of her gangly shape. That being said, her arms are longer than some people are tall, and the muscle winding its way over the multi-segmented skeleton beneath was apt for the job of propelling that distant mass about with comparative ease. Ease enough that the addition of several more feet of solid metal staff whirling about the pivot point at her shoulder could provide more than sufficient enough force to cave in even a skull evolved to withstand the immense pressures of the deep.
There was a solid clanking sound, followed by a wet gurgle.
Kneeling to pick up something from the red-smeared sand, Sari let out another happy chime. She rose and brought a small object up to her face with a familiar motion. It was followed by Ganger's earlier gift, for comparison. But for the addition of a trailing glob of bloody mess clinging to the new one, she judged them sufficiently similar to be significant. She was on to something! This was important! Sari opened her mouth in a wide smile and sounded out a word. Like the soft tinkle of glass shards, she voiced it.
“Reward!”