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Author Topic: Acheron & the Shards of Heaven: The Assassination (Suggestions Welcome)  (Read 11575 times)

~Neri

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Let's meet them here.
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The Froggy Ninja

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Ooooh, deeeefinitely have Kleine and the humans be waiting for them, instill terror into their hissing hearts! And then be perfectly civil and polite.

Ustris: Well, there's a curfew anyways, so saying small group would be less suspicious is silly - but, they would be harder to notice, and hopefully lead to minimal losses.
+1

Karkov

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   Ustris and the ‘Silver Scorpions’ approached the wall under the cover of darkness, the sun had gone down in the past hour and he could see movement on top of the walls.  The guards were probably changing shifts, if they waited for a couple of minutes the guards would disperse over the walls.  The humans huddled against the adobe wall at a motion from Ustris, trying to conceal themselves away from the Skrellit eyes above.  Time passed slowly for Ustris, but after a few minutes of waiting, the movement died down.  Ustris began etching out the ritual for moving earth, luckily it was a very simplistic ritual and was done very quickly.  He just had to make sure it had limiters so that it wouldn’t move the entire wall.

   A couple of moments of tense silence later, the wall had a door big enough to allow two of the humans abreast to pass through.  They passed through, splitting into four groups and heading roughly towards the warehouse district.  With any luck, they would make it there later without seeing a single Skrellit.  Ustris grabbed a broom that had been lazily thrown against the wall earlier, and chucked it through the hole in the wall at his ritual.  His aim was impeccable, and obliterated half of it, effectively disrupting the ritual and slamming shut the hole in the wall.  Now they were in the city, and Ustris didn’t intend to leave peacefully.



   Kleine straightened from her crouch at the door.  This race was willing to help humans?  Or at least pay them.  She might as well have a chat with them.  She grabbed the handle to the door and flung it open, stepping into the light from the lamp on the table.  Whatever race this was, she had never seen it before.  Four creatures were surrounding the table, they had scales that seemed blue at first, but changed whenever they shifted in the light, their ears were finlike, and their hands seemed to be webbed.  Their heads had a sort of snakelike quality to them, but they seemed mixed with something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.  The eyes were like snakes, with their vertical pupils and had multiple pupils.  Overall they were a strange race to her.

   “I hear you’d like humans for your crew, and that you’re no friend of Skrellits.”  She had taken in their description before they could react, her incredible speed affecting not only her physical limits, but her sense of time as well.

   One of the creatures had grabbed a dagger that had been stuck in the table and had his arm cocked back to throw, when a larger one grabbed his arm in mid motion.  “Aye, that be right on both accountsss.”  This was the voice of the self-proclaimed Captain earlier.  His eyes had narrowed and she was sure that he was taking in every small detail.  His eyes scanned over her crossbow, seemingly dismissing it.

   “Then I have a proposition for you.”

   “And what might that be?”

   “Help us get rid of the Skrellits and we’ll sell you all of the spice that you want.”

   The Captain was taken aback by that at first.  He began to guffaw immediately after, which was extremely strange to Kleine, given his snake-ly attributes.  The rest of the room also chuckled, a sort of hissing sound that made the hairs on the back of Kleine’s neck stand up.  “And what makesss you think you can take on the Ssskrellitsss?  I’d be glad to be rid of them, but even I can sssee futility, little girl.”

   “What if I told you that humanity had a God backing it?”

   A deathly still entered the room, the laughing stopped immediately.  All eyes were on her now, she could see that a few of them had moved their hands to the swords at their hips.  “That changesss everything.  Pray tell, which God isss it?  I can’t think of any God... brave enough to do that, not even Capricorn.”

   She could suddenly feel Jeeves in her chest.  It wasn’t like he was shifting, but suddenly she was completely aware of him, as if a wolf suddenly shifted in its sleep.  She placed a smile on her face that she wasn’t feeling, it would probably be better to keep Gilgamesh a secret for now.  “I can’t quite tell you that, all that I can say is that there are two Champions who are hell-bent against destroying the Skrellits.”

   She could tell the Captain was mulling it over, though she wasn’t sure exactly what he was thinking.  His face was very unlike a human’s in that sense, there didn’t seem to be many manipulative muscles in their faces.  “What do you plan to do, onccce the Ssskrellitsss are gone?  And what would we get from thisss…  Allianccce?”

   One of the people stiffened as soon as he heard the words come from the Captain’s mouth.  “Captain, you can’t mea-“  A rough backhand from the Captain silenced him quickly.  That had been the one arguing with the Captain earlier.  He nodded back to Kleine when there was silence again.

   “As of right now we’re not sure what will happen when the Skrellits are dead.  We do know that we’d become a haven for any human who wants to be free.  As for what you get out of it… Open recruitment in the city for any who want to join you.  We’ll also need supplies, so we’ll be willing to trade the spice for meals and water.”

   The Captain’s eyes lit up bright at that last part.  “Aye, that be a fair trade, to be sssure.”  Kleine was certain the spice was worth far more than that now.  If the Captain so readily accepted overthrowing a city for a single luxury product, it must be worth a ridiculous amount.  Suddenly she understood how an entire city could exist so far out here in the wastes.  “You sssaid you have two Championsss to overthrow the Ssskrellitsss?  Now you have three.”  He fished a necklace out from under his vest, and a Shard of Heaven was easily recognizable hanging there.




   Ustris was leading his small band of humans towards the warehouses.  Most everything had been quiet, there had been a close call or two with patrols during their venture.  No alarms had been raised anywhere over the city however, and the warehouse was within sight.  He was drained from moving the wall earlier, he would have to rest soon, but he could easily fight at a moment’s notice if necessary.  They had met up with one of the humans who had come in with Kleine, and currently they were following her to the warehouse.  She stopped at the end of an alleyway directly across from the warehouse and looked both ways, giving them the all-clear, she scurried on across the street.

   Ustris was pleasantly surprised to find that the warehouse was the biggest around, and that it was full of other humans.  He entered the warehouse and began looking for Kleine.  After a moment’s search, he noticed she wasn’t here, and that some of the humans that had been sleeping on the floor were beginning to rouse.  He ordered his group to settle in and wait for the others, and then began to look for where Kleine had gone.  She hadn’t told him via Jeeves that she had left the warehouse, so she must still be inside somewhere.  A short while later, he found the trapdoor and jumped down into it, noticing the burning torch on the wall.  He was sure she was down here, but he needed to recover his mana, and sleeping would be the fastest way.  If she needed to find him Jeeves could direct her.  He sat down beneath the burning torch and closed his eyes, easily falling into a small nap.

Spoiler: Stat Sheet (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Kleine's Magics: (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Ustris Magics: (click to show/hide)




OOC:  I'd totally like to just sit here and write up a ten page bargaining thing, but in the hopes of alacrity (and keeping this train chugging along rather slowly), huzzah!

Level ups are happening in the next update, throw me suggestions.  Neither weapon has been used enough to level up, so it's only a body level up, which is 3 stat point or a mutation.

What next?
« Last Edit: July 17, 2014, 07:27:18 pm by Karkov »
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Worldmaster27

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Ustris: +1 Agility +1 Intellect and +1 Charisma

Kleine: +2 Strength +1 Charisma

Crystal Staff: Develop power that ambivalently draws power from non-champions nearby to restore Ustris's fatigue.

Crossbow: +1 Speed

Kleine: Ask the creatures what they call their species and go back to the warehouse to fetch Ustris in order to make a plan with the [others].

Ustris: Be fetched, suggest plan and ask questions about his(?) god and what he knows of being a Champion.
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Lyeos

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Ustris: +1 Agility +1 Intellect and +1 Charisma

Kleine: +2 Strength +1 Charisma

Crystal Staff: Develop power that ambivalently draws power from non-champions nearby to restore Ustris's fatigue.

Crossbow: +1 Speed


Kleine: Ask the creatures what they call their species and go back to the warehouse to fetch Ustris in order to make a plan with the [others].

Ustris: Be fetched, suggest plan and ask questions about his(?) god and what he knows of being a Champion.

+1 Minus the weapon things.
Since they can't level yet.
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Karkov

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((Yeah, the weapons haven't been used in about two weeks. They're a little bit dusty.))

Worldmaster27

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Oh, misread that. Sorry.
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3man75

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Ustris: +1 Agility +1 Intellect and +1 Charisma

Kleine: +2 Strength +1 Charisma

Crystal Staff: Develop power that ambivalently draws power from non-champions nearby to restore Ustris's fatigue.

Crossbow: +1 Speed


Kleine: Ask the creatures what they call their species and go back to the warehouse to fetch Ustris in order to make a plan with the [others].

Ustris: Be fetched, suggest plan and ask questions about his(?) god and what he knows of being a Champion.

+1 Minus the weapon things.
Since they can't level yet.

+1
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The Froggy Ninja

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Ustris: +3 Con

Kleine: +2 Strength +1 Charisma

Kleine: Ask the creatures what they call their species and go back to the warehouse to fetch Ustris in order to make a plan with the [others].

Ustris: Be fetched, suggest plan and ask questions about his(?) god and what he knows of being a Champion.

Karkov

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Spoiler: Shameful Display (click to show/hide)



OOC:  Sorry for the half update, I'm ridiculously tired and about to get off of work, so I'll finish this before I go to work tomorrow.

Next week I have a security conference I get to go to, so I don't know how sporadic updates will be then.  I definitely plan to continue this, I will say that.

I'm actually sort of curious if I could turn this into a novel after we finish it.

EDIT:  This is the day I learned more about Unicode!  Apparently you can end a bunch of effects if you cancel the first effect you put into play, in this case [/b].  Awesome.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 07:25:34 pm by Karkov »
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Karkov

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((So long story short, I actually was sick yesterday.  Low-grade fever and stupidly drained the entire day.  Today is much better, I am full of food and energy, and I came into work an hour earlier than I normally do.

Going to rewrite that awful update from yesterday and finish it off.  Sorry about that, guys.))

Karkov

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Re: Acheron & the Shards of Heaven: New Friends (Suggestions Welcome)
« Reply #131 on: July 22, 2014, 08:12:23 pm »

   Kleine pried her eyes off of the amulet around the Captain’s neck.  She had felt an instinctual surge whenever he brandished it, an almost insuppressible urge to swing her crossbow up and loose a bolt right into his neck.  She stayed her hand however, and the moment passed after its initial burst.  She could have sworn that Jeeves had snarled during the confusion, though he seemed his original calm self now.  Something definitely was affecting her now, she would never have thought to kill someone if they offered help before, no matter who it was.

   After she regained her composure, she turned to the Captain.  “We’ll use all the help we can get.  You know of the humans, obviously, but I’m sorry to say that our sorry band hasn’t heard of you.  What should we call you?”

   “We do be the Naga, misssss.  That be the name that the land dwellersss give to usss.  Our real name isss a bit hard to pronounccce in your tongue.  My name be Morbal, Captain of the Redfin, fassstessst ssship in the Obellion Sssea.  Thisss here be my firssst mate, Finnigan.”  He gestured towards the Naga he had been arguing with, she could only imagine the face he was making was a scowl.  It was difficult to read the Naga when their faces differed so much from their own.

   Kleine proffered her hand.  “Kleine Feuersturm, recent Champion and leader of the human rebellion.”

   Morbal seemed taken aback, looking her over again before shaking her hand.  She could tell he was trying to crush her hand, but it didn’t seem to be half of what Ustris could do.  It was slightly more than what she could exert, however, and she squeezed back with her own might.  Morbal noticed the strength of the grip and nodded.  “Ye didn’t tell me you were a Champion yourssself.  Do me the honor and presssent to me your Ssshard.”

   “That would be rather difficult as my Shard is within my chest.”

   “Now I know you be joking with me.  Ssshards come in amuletsss or ringsss.  You cannot put a Ssshard inssside sssomeone, that would kill them.”

   “I assure you that I am indeed a Champion.  Would you care for a physical test?”  Kill her?  Did Gilgamesh do something odd when he placed the Shard into the both of them?  He was already odd enough, didn’t Jeeves mention something about using Shards as jewelry making them more inferior?  She would have to straighten that out soon, something was very off about the two of them.

   “That won’t be necccessssary, missss.  If we be done here, I do want my ssspiccce.”

   “Very well, it should be nighttime and the other Champion should be in the warehouse.  Between the three of us, I’m sure we can piece together a plan to overthrow the city.  We’ll get you your spice and more.”  With that, she backed out into the hallway and re-summoned her fireball, lighting up the hallway more brilliantly than the lamp on the table would have.

   Morbal saw the fireball suspended in the air above her hand and gave a short barking laugh, shaking his head from side to side.  Kleine felt it to be a decent bet that Morbal himself couldn’t use magic.  The Naga filed out of the room, in total fifteen.  She hadn’t seen the ones in the back, apparently they had been hiding just out of sight in case something did happen.  She wasn’t sure she could have taken the fifteen of them on at one time, but then again she had explosive magic in a small confined room.  It would have been up for grabs as to who would have walked out of that mess.

   They walked in relative peace until Kleine’s curiosity got the better of her, she began asking Morbal question after question about his past and his ambitions.  Luckily, Morbal seemed rather pleased that someone was taking an interest in him.  He spun wild tales about his previous ventures, apparently he was a rather egotistical Naga, and through those tales she could gleam some bit of the truth.  Morbal had apparently received his ship and his Shard at the same time, through a violent takeover of a ship they found headed towards a town on a coast.  This, by his accounts, happened to be on the other side of the continent, near another God’s territory.  Morbal was within his prime, and happened to be just strong enough at the time to overpower the old Champion who had possession of his Shard before him.  To hear him tell it they had had a swordfight that lasted for years, with magic being thrown against his impervious scales, with fleets of ships being lost on both sides.  Kleine figured it was probably a new Champion himself getting into a fight with a much bigger creature than himself.

   Viktor eventually came into view, scowling and muttering quietly to himself, only noticing the rest of them when Kleine got his attention.  His head snapped up and he seemed to reach for a sword that wasn’t there.  After Kleine made introductions he seemed to calm down a small bit.  His eyes shifted disdainfully between each of the Naga, and he seemed on the verge of spitting, but he thought better of it and fell in behind Kleine.  He still seemed as though he were trying to protect her from the Naga however, and seemed to shift himself constantly between her and them.  Jeeves also took this time to chime in and tell her that he could make a few changes to her physique again, if she so wished it.  She pondered for a moment before silently telling Jeeves that she wanted to be stronger, and slightly more charismatic.  He declared that it would be done, and that within the day she would be stronger than their new acquaintance.  He relapsed into his strange silence almost instantly.

   Morbal continued on about the past year, regaling Kleine with fantasies that were entirely untrue, or had some hint of the truth behind them.  He ended up mentioning that his Shard came from the God Pisces and that the Skrellit’s God was named Libra.  He talked about how the Skrellit’s spice was precious enough to buy anything you wanted with a “sssmall handful,” and how he had used to have a contact that would provide him with spice.  Though that contact ended up attacking his honor, apparently the Skrellit had insulted his ship in an offhand manner, and he ended up killing him in a duel.  Kleine asked him if he had felt any different in his mind or motivations in the last year, since he had acquired the Shard.

   Morbal stopped walking for a moment and looked thoughtful, or that’s what she imagined him looking.  “You know, it do be funny.  Before I got my Ssshard, I never ssso much thought of making money, jussst taking it.  I do think I’ve been doing much more trading thisss year than I ever have before.  I never thought of it before now.”

   Kleine almost thought he was going to renege on their agreement before Morbal simply shrugged and kept walking.  His tales became less grand as they traveled however, she could see that her question weighed on his mind.  Somewhere along the way she noticed Morbal had stuffed his symbol back down into his tunic, she almost commented on it before she noticed that they were at the end of the hallway.  She hadn’t realized they had walked this far again, apparently his stories had hastened the time somewhat on the way.



   Ustris had woken some time ago, and had been exploring the room underneath the warehouse with the torch that had been in the sconce.  He could hear the humans upstairs milling about occasionally, though for the most part they seemed content to sit there in silence.  As he had been exploring had found that most of the room was empty, a few crates were here and there, along with some barrels full of liquids, but nothing of real interest.  He found the door into the hallway that Kleine had entered, but he decided that they would be back eventually and he would meet them here.  Jeeves had also contacted him during this downtime, telling him that he could make modifications to his body again if he wished it.  Ustris went ahead and asked Jeeves to make the modifications to his agility, intellect, and charisma this time.  Jeeves told him that he would be done within the day, then told him that Kleine would be here soon with guests, and lapsed into an odd silence.

   Ustris decided that if Kleine was to be here with guests, he might as well make a welcoming committee, and began scavenging around the room for anything relevant.  In short order, he found a couple of goblets, a sealed bottle of Skrellit wine, three Skrellit chairs, and a rather low set table.  He arranged them to his liking, and then used his earth moving spell to create a sconce for a torch, then he sat down and waited for Kleine to return.  During the time however, his mind raced, creating a plan for the destruction of the Skrellits.



   Kleine and Morbal entered the area beneath the warehouse and could see a small area lit by a torch.  Curiosity immediately took Morbal, even though he had been focused on getting his spice just moments before.  He took off towards the light, everyone trailing behind.  Kleine saw Ustris sitting in the chair at almost the same time Morbal did, and took off towards him.  Ustris had stood when he saw them coming close.  In one flowing motion she had dissipated her fireball and tried to engulf Ustris in a hug.  Almost two days away from each other and she felt immense relief now that he was back.  She could have sworn she felt Ustris hug back, if briefly, that damned chestpiece made it hard to tell.  After a moment she realized that she was putting on a rather poor show to about seventeen pairs of unwanted eyes and pried herself away from Ustris hastily.  Coughing into her hand, she began introductions.

   “Right, Ustris, this is Captain Morbal of the ship, Redfin.”  Kleine still had trouble imagining the ship, seeing as how she had never seen one herself.  She didn’t understand why it made Morbal so proud to be associated with it, either.  “Captain Morbal, this is Ustris Gayitu, the other Champion of the Human Rebellion.”

   Morbal had walked up to Ustris and began trying to puff himself up.  Ustris could tell that he was trying to assert dominance, to which Ustris simply smiled and offered his hand.  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Morbal.”

   Morbal took his hand in a crushing grip as he had tried with Kleine earlier, but was completely ineffectual to Ustris.  Ustris however, returned his grip with gusto.  Morbal seemed to be having difficulty keeping his composure.  “A pleasssure, my good sssir.  May we dissspenssse with cussstom, and get to the reasssonof thisss meeting?”

   Ustris let go of Morbal’s hand, which he snatched away quickly.  Ustris gestured to the chairs and they each took one for themselves.  Ustris handed the bottle of wine to Morbal and gestured to the goblets.  Morbal opened the seal on the wine and sniffed it, obviously checking to see if it had been poisoned.  Satisfied at the pleasant aroma, he poured the wine into the three goblets, and chose one at random.  Kleine and Ustris both grabbed a goblet themselves.  “A toassst, to the death of the Ssskrellitsss.”

   “I’ll drink to that.”  The three of them touched their goblets, and drank at the same time. 

   After a few moments with nothing happening, Morbal nodded again.  “Ssso, where do we ssstart?”



Spoiler: Stat Sheet (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Kleine's Magics: (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Ustris Magics: (click to show/hide)


OOC:  Okay, sorry about that belated update my friends.  I hate writing when sick, it makes my writing terrible because I suddenly become accepting of everything I write, which normally I'm reeeaaally anal about story details and stuff.

Anyway, suggestions for the siege would be nice.  Where and what do we strike first?  How hard?  Do we delay for a while?  Are there any other questions that need to be answered?
« Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 08:16:23 pm by Karkov »
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3man75

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We know there's a Skraelite Champion here so offing him/her would be a good idea.

From there we can just wreck havok and destroy parts of the town while dodging/killing Skraelite Guards.
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Karkov

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Re: Acheron & the Shards of Heaven: New Friends (Suggestions Welcome)
« Reply #133 on: July 22, 2014, 08:23:33 pm »

We know there's a Skraelite Champion here so offing him/her would be a good idea.

From there we can just wreck havok and destroy parts of the town while dodging/killing Skraelite Guards.

((I like that spelling of Skrellit.  I may have to steal that in the next couple of updates.))

Lyeos

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We know there's a Skraelite Champion here so offing him/her would be a good idea.

From there we can just wreck havok and destroy parts of the town while dodging/killing Skraelite Guards.

Assuming the other Skrellits knew he was a Champion, it would probably screw with their morale if we strung his or her corpse up somewhere noticeable during the middle of the night, too.

Can we specifically detect that Skrellit, though?
And I seriously doubt he'll be without others good with combat.
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