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It was inevitable

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Total Members Voted: 35

[Parisbre56]

Campaign

Keep your distance - Amon Tobin

((did River have a response to my statement? that would have been made immediately, before we left the crater.))
I am attempting to follow Ike, but am not 100% right now.

If you mean this,

Pfp:
Irine, campaign
as I stumble out to where ike is.
to River:
<Remember why too. I've lost more than you ever will. Self-sacrifice is never worth it. No matter what I did to Theri, you could fix it. Protecting you is, for me, a better way to protect her than protecting her myself.>
To ike:
<Thank you. Where is everyone else?>

then no. He just kept walking towards Ike. Ike (and therefore you, since he was still transmitting) would see him display a hint of anger on his face and you'd probably see his tail twitch a bit, but that's it.
Also, I forgot to ask, what is pfp?

Campaign, Ike!
Debrief, and while waiting/following River, seek materials (skulls, femurs, gravel, strips of cloth) to construct Skullflail.

The two of you follow River as he quickly moves away from the crater, his four legs and general strength giving him an advantage in the rough terrain. You two follow some distance behind, trying to keep up.

At one point a tremor occurs that causes the rubble Ike is standing on to destabilise. He falls into a small hole, but besides some abrasions he's OK. In fact, it turns out to be a fortuitous coincidence when inside he finds a simple stone sarcophagus that has been broken in half by the collapsing ceiling. The contents aren't very impressive, just a skeleton of a short human that looks like it was burned a long time ago, but its skull is interesting. It has a metal plate screwed on it. That could make it a better than average flail, if the screws haven't compromised the integrity of the skull. It looks like his luck continues.

By the time the sun has disappeared behind the mountains and the sky has turned dark blue everywhere but there, where it is a dark red instead, you have managed to get away from the worst of the destruction. Just in time too, for navigating the sections of collapsed ground would have been quite dangerous during the night without illumination, even with Ike's enhanced senses. Right now there's only the twilight and what little glow from the lava reaching you providing illumination.

OOC
I started watching Black Mirror. It is depressing yet fun.

[Lenglon]

pfp = Posting From Phone. or Posting From Place of work.
basically the post is made in a hurry / on a tiny keyboard and so please forgive mistakes.
((Are you sure about the navigation problems? River is River, Ike has enhanced senses, and the early morning / late evening is a fox's preferred hunting time. all of us should be fine in the dark.))

[Parisbre56]

((Ah, thanks, that's good to know.

And I was just saying that it's hard to tell if something is stable or not in low lighting. Sonar can't help very much with that, especially now that his hearing is a bit damaged. Not that that's much of a problem, you could just create some fire. And I think foxes don't have very good eyesight compared to humans.

At least I think it would be easier to visually check if something is stable. Maybe it's not.

Oh, and something I forgot.)) That feeling of being stronger is starting to diminish as you move further into the city.

[Toaster]

Survival:


Yeah, work on the below list as we go:

Not sure how much time these things will take, so I'll just list several.  Do them in order until I run out of time, repeating anything I screw up:
Reinforce the glass to make it bullet resistant
A ram on the front (like you see on police cars)
A turret on the back, ideally sunk into the trunk to make it less obviously visible.  Remote operation for someone in the back seat.  A .50 cal or something is fine for armament./b]

[Hawk132]

Survival

Attempt to use this "seatbelt" contraption. Do the usual watching for projectiles thing too.

[Alarith]

Bryan, survival
"Another hour, another crisis"
No, just keep driving and using my radar, anything else would probably be too distracting.

[Lenglon]

Red foxes have binocular vision, but their sight reacts mainly to movement. Their auditory perception is acute, being able to hear black grouses changing roosts at 600 paces, the flight of crows at 0.25–0.5 kilometres (0.16–0.31 mi) and the squeaking of mice at about 100 metres (330 ft). They are capable of locating sounds to within one degree at 700–3,000 Hz, though less accurately at higher frequencies. Their sense of smell is good, but weaker than that of specialised dogs.

((something people who haven't been out of the city much don't usually understand is how nightvision actually works. even on a clouded over night with no moon (like, say, this last monday night, and over 20 miles from the nearest city, at midnight, which is exactly where i was at that time) you don't need a flashlight or NVGs or anything like that to see. it tends to take about 15-20 mins to fully adjust, sometimes longer, and you lose color vision. (which for me makes everything very slightly blue-tinted versions of greyscale). but it's actually not as hard to see as you'd think. the tough part is when the sun has  set for a short while but the sky around it is still very slightly glowing, because every time you look up enough to see the sky your nightvision takes a major hit.

under those conditions, the worst i've ever experienced, even worse than a cloudy sky with no moon at midnight, where the sun-reflecting-off-the-sky is reducing how far I can see, I can generally sometimes recognize building-sized objects at long distances (sometimes i need to be within 50 feet-ish, depends on the color and background and angle and stuff), large objects at about 20 feet, medium-sized objects at about 7 feet, and small objects at 2 feet.

now then, for a human, that's really, really close.

but for a fox? 2 feet is actually a decent distance. remember how small a fox is and how low to the ground. your eyes are over 4 feet away from your feet, right?
a fox's are less than a single foot from the ground.

at less than a foot away, individual pebbles can be easilly picked out even under the most horrible of conditions.

foxes don't NEED good vision to walk around on rough terrain.))

[Tiruin]

((I'm backing up Lenglon's statements there, from what I know of zoology and anatomy of differing animals: she's correct in her assertions [human senses are very different from some animal senses], and considering that a few of us are drawing from mythological lore, it seems to combine in part--however, this also means that there are some traits biological to our characters that we lack, that humans have. Like surviving a very viral disease.

Err, that is...if you're all ok with this kind of depth with character senses and narration, Paris ))

Campaign

((Ike wins at psychology forever.))

. . .
*reads*
. . .
*nods*
((Nice work of narrative Harry :3 A beautiful mix of Ike's rough personality and his eccentricism.
If I was alive, I'd challenge that like an opposite magnetic pole ))

[Lenglon]

Irine, Campaign
As it gets later in the day and we show no signs of stopping, I start hunting for prey animals or maybe some berries that I could eat. A mouse would be nice. Still, I mostly am trying to keep up with River and Ike.
<How much farther do we have to go?>

[Harry Baldman]

Campaign, Ike!

<That 'am I real?' thing is nothing new. I am not a lizard and... you... I don't know what you're trying to do. Are... are you trying to cheer me up by making me mad? I... you're confusing...>

<Oh, so you've already had and resolved that identity crisis? Coming prepared, I see! +2 points, very good. That makes... 22, if I'm not missing my mark? Good work thus far, keep at it. The point is, you just keep looking for things to get hung up on, like being dead or, more ridiculously, burial and remembrance, or even that people hate you or something, while I, by contrast, tend to look on the bright side of life, the "team one third alive, with improvements incoming" rather than the "team two thirds dead, cause of death: maginuclear explosion" side, the "River is a dick who brought this on himself" rather than the "River hates me forever for doing what I thought was the right thing at the time" side. The fun side, the good side. The self-righteous, blissfully deluded side, and I wouldn't have it any other way.>

<How much farther do we have to go?>

<It depends a lot on your subjective perception of time. For instance, I once spent the better part of two subjective months or so driving a car from one end of a town to the other with nary a car chase or destructible fruit stand in sight after the first bit. So it could be very long indeed, or not long at all. It helps to whistle your way through it.>

As it gets later in the day, consider finding a human corpse to get some extra meat from in case somebody's eaten the one in the Beetlecave, which is where I assume we're going. If we're not, get some meat just in case anyway. Make sure I've taken along the metal-plated skull and continue working on the Skullflail.

[Parisbre56]

Survival

Survival:


Yeah, work on the below list as we go:

Not sure how much time these things will take, so I'll just list several.  Do them in order until I run out of time, repeating anything I screw up:
Reinforce the glass to make it bullet resistant
A ram on the front (like you see on police cars)
A turret on the back, ideally sunk into the trunk to make it less obviously visible.  Remote operation for someone in the back seat.  A .50 cal or something is fine for armament./b]

You add an extra dense layer of a glass-like material to the windshield, hoping it will help make it more resistant without reducing visibility.

You attempt to reinforce the car's bumper. But you are not content with making it a simple piece of reinforced metal. You decide to add an array of large rotating buzzsaws and hammer drills to it as well, powered directly from the engine's crankshaft through a system of gears.

You can't concentrate enough to summon a gun though.

Survival

Attempt to use this "seatbelt" contraption. Do the usual watching for projectiles thing too.

You adjust the seat's belt, a strip of sturdy cloth that wraps around it, with a buckle featuring an orange-coloured depression in its middle. You fail to see why it needs a belt, it's not wearing any clothes. These humans have very strange customs.
"No, no, no, you're supposed to tie yourself with it."
'Tie yourself with it?' That's strange. Oh well, you suppose you'll indulge his silly demands.

Bryan, survival
"Another hour, another crisis"
No, just keep driving and using my radar, anything else would probably be too distracting.

You keep driving. The added weight to the front of the car forces you to readjust your driving style, but you continue without much problems.

You are approaching the tunnel. It should come into view soon. It feels like you're passing by large gatherings of people and there's more coming up ahead, some of them in the middle of the road.

Campaign

((@Lenglon: Ah, ok that makes sense. I hadn't thought of the scale difference.
Then again, my argument was more about the fact that it's hard to judge the overall stability/condition/damage of a large structure in low light conditions. But now that I think about it, a fox is small and doesn't weigh much, so it should not matter very much.
But I like the info you provide, especially the stuff about nightvision. Humans are everywhere around here so even on a mountain there's still quite a lot of light pollution. Only time I had to use my nightvision was during a blackout that lasted very long (and sometimes inside the house when I move around with all the lights and window covers closed, but I don't think that counts) and I found it incredible how even the glow from my wristwatch's hands was enough to help me see.
I'll keep that in mind since it will probably become relevant sometime.))

Irine, Campaign
As it gets later in the day and we show no signs of stopping, I start hunting for prey animals or maybe some berries that I could eat. A mouse would be nice. Still, I mostly am trying to keep up with River and Ike.
<How much farther do we have to go?>

After walking for a while, you think you hear a noise coming from under a pile of dirt and rocks. You approach quietly, jump on it and start digging as fast as you can. You reach inside, bite and drag out something that looks like a young mole. You gulp it down greedily. It doesn't sate your hunger, but at least your stomach has stopped complaining for now.
You can hear more squeaking coming from further inside the hole, becoming quieter as time passes. Looks like the rest got away. Probably not worth it going after them. You'll find more.

You keep going after Ike and find him dragging a corpse. Looks like River went on without him but he seems to know the way. Or at least he keeps moving acting like he knows the way. Maybe he just doesn't worry that he's lost.

Campaign, Ike!

<That 'am I real?' thing is nothing new. I am not a lizard and... you... I don't know what you're trying to do. Are... are you trying to cheer me up by making me mad? I... you're confusing...>

<Oh, so you've already had and resolved that identity crisis? Coming prepared, I see! +2 points, very good. That makes... 22, if I'm not missing my mark? Good work thus far, keep at it. The point is, you just keep looking for things to get hung up on, like being dead or, more ridiculously, burial and remembrance, or even that people hate you or something, while I, by contrast, tend to look on the bright side of life, the "team one third alive, with improvements incoming" rather than the "team two thirds dead, cause of death: maginuclear explosion" side, the "River is a dick who brought this on himself" rather than the "River hates me forever for doing what I thought was the right thing at the time" side. The fun side, the good side. The self-righteous, blissfully deluded side, and I wouldn't have it any other way.>

<How much farther do we have to go?>

<It depends a lot on your subjective perception of time. For instance, I once spent the better part of two subjective months or so driving a car from one end of a town to the other with nary a car chase or destructible fruit stand in sight after the first bit. So it could be very long indeed, or not long at all. It helps to whistle your way through it.>

As it gets later in the day, consider finding a human corpse to get some extra meat from in case somebody's eaten the one in the Beetlecave, which is where I assume we're going. If we're not, get some meat just in case anyway. Make sure I've taken along the metal-plated skull and continue working on the Skullflail.

While Irine is busy digging a hole, you look around for a suitable corpse. You find a rather fresh corpse lying on the side of a street, next to a house's door. In fact, it's a bit more fresh than you expected. The blood around the wound on the man's head looks like it has clotted only recently. He is very definitely dead, his head has been hit very hard by... something big, but he can't have been dead for very long. You shrug, pick him up from the shoulders and start dragging him away.

A while later you reach the entrance to the Beetlecave, joined in the meantime by Irene. You crawl through the entrance (Irene just walks through) and experience the same feeling of nausea and vertigo as when you were exiting. You guess from Irine's body language that she feels the same.

Inside you see that River has gotten the fire going again, adding new pieces of broken furniture to fuel it. You find him as you go to drop off your newly acquired corpse, munching hungrily on the one you left here before, having eaten almost half of it. Good thing you brought extra.

[Harry Baldman]

Campaign, Ike!

"Ha-hah! I knew a second corpse would come in handy! Time to have some dinner, I think!"

If River doesn't mind and the corpse he's got seems at least a bit roasted, have some of that long pork. If not, roast my own damn corpse.

However, before that, examine carefully the head wound. Does it seem like more of a giant rock that hit him on a head or a giant chisel? This seems important, you see.

[Lenglon]

Irine, Campaign.
I take a small wisp of flame from the campfire and move it out of the way above us, then slowly advance on the body river is eating in a submissive posture and look it over. if it's raw and/or River starts acting defensive of it, then I back away and instead move over to the body Ike brought in. In either case, once I'm at the food source I bring my little wisp of flame down to me, and use it to cook the food and help weaken it so I can rip it off more easilly at whatever small section I'm going to be biting next, probably the calf muscle, not minding the food being still quite hot due to my innate resistance.
Once I'm full (which shouldn't take long, in full-fox I only need to eat enough for my small body. It's the best one for a low-food environment like this.), I slip close to the fire and curl up, waiting for everyone else to be done. my little wisp of flame on the other side of me, helping me warm up evenly.
<So what now? Where is everyone else? are their soul orbs okay?>

[Parisbre56]

Campaign

Campaign, Ike!

"Ha-hah! I knew a second corpse would come in handy! Time to have some dinner, I think!"

If River doesn't mind and the corpse he's got seems at least a bit roasted, have some of that long pork. If not, roast my own damn corpse.

However, before that, examine carefully the head wound. Does it seem like more of a giant rock that hit him on a head or a giant chisel? This seems important, you see.

The bone has shattered and bent inwards around the wound, meaning it was probably caused by a heavy blunt object, probably larger than a hammer but smaller than a giant rock. I don't think you'd be able to determine more without some CSI magic though. There are no other obvious evidence there and the fact that this place is only lit by a single fire is not helping.

You grab one of the other corpse's limbs (River detaches it by biting on it repeatedly) and go over to the fire to roast it. You reason it's better than trying figure out how to roast a corpse with nothing but a fire, small pieces of wood and rocks, since you have neither the mood nor the visibility needed for crafting tools right now. Perhaps you should try crafting that bone-knife-thing again or next time you're out you should search for a meat cleaver.

River doesn't look like he minds you taking it. He seems OK with sharing both with you and with Irine, although he stops eating about a minute after Irine starts.

Irine, Campaign.
I take a small wisp of flame from the campfire and move it out of the way above us, then slowly advance on the body river is eating in a submissive posture and look it over. if it's raw and/or River starts acting defensive of it, then I back away and instead move over to the body Ike brought in. In either case, once I'm at the food source I bring my little wisp of flame down to me, and use it to cook the food and help weaken it so I can rip it off more easilly at whatever small section I'm going to be biting next, probably the calf muscle, not minding the food being still quite hot due to my innate resistance.
Once I'm full (which shouldn't take long, in full-fox I only need to eat enough for my small body. It's the best one for a low-food environment like this.), I slip close to the fire and curl up, waiting for everyone else to be done. my little wisp of flame on the other side of me, helping me warm up evenly.
<So what now? Where is everyone else? are their soul orbs okay?>

You curl up near the fire with your flame orb by your side, joining Ike who is currently finishing up his meal and River who has curled up near the flame with his back against a pile of rocks. He alternates from looking at you to looking at Ike.
<So what now? Where is everyone else? are their soul orbs okay?>
He lifts his head off the ground to look at you directly for a few seconds before responding.
<Now I will rest. Tomorrow I will hunt for what I need to revive the others. I hope they will be fine.>
((EDIT: Note that the lack/vagueness of answer to where the others are and if they are fine was intentional. I did not miss it.))

[Harry Baldman]

Campaign, Ike!

"Hm. Well! I'm thinking, on one hand, that it might be a good idea to look for some soul spheres now, but on the other hand, it's pretty clear that something horrible is out there murdering people if this corpse is any indication. So it stands to reason I need some tools first."

Craft a knife out of broken glass and some clothing (don't range far in search of either), then use resulting tool to continue work on Skullflail.