Topic: Web of Life: A Drider's Adventure (Ended) (Read 185057 times)

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2910 on:** April 02, 2019, 04:23:25 pm »

Just a quick update: I'm not abandoning this, I've just been a tad swamped recently. Update should be there tomorrow, and then things should be back on schedule.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2911 on:** April 03, 2019, 10:50:02 am »

The air outside seems... wrong. That's about the first thing you noticed after your extended period indoors. Things have not improved while you were gone, and there is a peculiar smell, similar to that of fish, or some other nautical horror. You wish you know what Lovecraft's beef with fish was, considering that there aren't a lot of things that smell worse than fish monsters. Well, meta commentary aside, it really does stink around here. It doesn't take long before you find what the problem might be, when you turn a corner. One of the worst possible signs occurs right behind you: Sucy is uncorking a particularly large flask, and she's smiling. A normal smile, even, no teeth showing. She's undeservedly cute when she does that, though it's hard to think of something as cute when you've seen them kill somebody by slamming a syringe in somebody to make them swell up and literally burst.
Pull the hood down. You don't want to get infected.
Not yet, anyway. If I can force a few changes, I bet I could make this beneficial. More importantly, tempora-
It's hard to describe your face as you stare at her. Intimidating isn't quite the word, but does have a certain pizzaz to it that seems to make it impossible to focus on anything else. It's not a good kind of stare either. No, this is the stare you give your friend when they say something intelligent like "I'm going to drink bleach to clear out my bowels" or "This mystery egg sure looks at least a little edible". It's a stare that is not to be described by anything physical. Physically, you just thinned the lips, and your eyes bugged out a tiny bit. You tilt your head sideways and shake it, almost imperceptively. To make it easier to understand, this is the stare that is connected to "what the fuck have you wrought upon this cursed land" seconds after somebody brings in a ludicrously bad idea.
Now, while the narrator just went off on that, let's just be clear here: Sucy didn't understand the obvious stare because she was too busy adjusting the beak mask. It's a shame she missed it, it was quite the expression.

Don't plan that. Don't even think about planning that. Don't even think about not planning it.
Yes, yes. Don't worry. I wouldn't use it _{On myself} without being sure.
Still. Don't do it.
You can't see it past her mask, but you're certain she rolled her eyes. You elect to keep moving, instead. You need some wretch to drain, and then you'll pick up Yunikki, wherever she is. You'll just follow the blood, if you know your girl well enough. Either way, turning the corner, you see the sign of something special, at least. Hundred upon hundred of eyes, splattered all around in slimy heaps. The eyes still turn towards you, but the body that they used to be attached lies lifeless in the middle of the street. The body itself was wreathed in a cloak of some sort, but whatever was on the inside was long past anything even resembeling a humanoid shape. At best, it had legs, other than that it was nothing but an amalgamation of limbs, not even attached to a central point. It was a knot, mixed together into seemingly impossible shapes. You get dizzy looking at it, and elect to look back at your party member, who is happily scooping up eye goo in her vial. You just grown at the sight, and let it be. As long as her vials remain airtight, things should be fine. Still, it's hard to imagine just what could have killed the eye thing like that. It looks like something massive just leapt through a massive blob of eyes. The power needed for a hit like that goes beyond any wizard you know, except for the headmaster back at the tower. You doubt that disciple of swole would come to this place, and he wouldn't have used magic, anyway. So what's large, fast and utterly reckless to the point of jumping through a glob of eyeballs and what is likely a crazy amount of magic.
Whoah! You suddenly hear from behind you. You leap around, and stick your sword in front of the shape. It's small and...
A kid? A human kid, even!?
Whoa whoa! Easy! I thought... I mean, you guys don't seem like mutants. Uh, except you. You look a little funky, but I don't think driders are affected by the things going around. The kid starts rambeling, apparenly forgetting about the particularly heavy and sharp weapon you just stuck in front of him. It's pretty impressive to one-hand a Ram Dao, but Alexia makes it work. She rotates the massive blade around, making a show of it.
Who are you? Sucy says, dispassionate and holding one of her plague bombs. The little pouches are unmistakable.
Uh, I'm an apprentice. I was with a lady for a time, said she needed to get to somebody. I mean, she turned into a weird bird thing and tore that watcher to shreds, so I, uh, kept hiding. There was also this pig butcher, but I think that thing got away. The lady ran off, all screechy.
You sigh deeply, pinching your nose as you do so. Of course things won't be easy.
Yunikki's transformed and on the loose, now. Well, that complicated things.
We should bring the kid to the hideout.
Not without some tests. It's certainly possible that he dodged any kind of contamination, but I don't want to risk that place becoming contaminated by an asymptomatic carrier.
Do you have tests for that?
It's as simple as a blood test, but the instrument I need for that is still at the hideout. It's fragile, so I didn't pack it.
...Super.

Will you both make a detour to get the kid to the hideout, or will you just explore alone for a little while, see if you can't get some clues in what direction Yunikki rampaged. Alternatively, you can take the kid with you, if you feel like being really negligent of the safety of minors.

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Remember when I said things should be back to normal? Well that's wrong. Shit's fucked. Shit is so utterly fucked. I'll be updating again next week on monday, hopefully.

omada · « **Reply #2912 on:** April 03, 2019, 01:01:05 pm »

We probably can see signs of yukinni train moving somewhere else, take the kid with us

Devastator · « **Reply #2913 on:** April 03, 2019, 11:13:03 pm »

This is the whole reason why we got large enough to carry humans.

I would send him back, but sucy wants a test subject..

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2914 on:** April 08, 2019, 04:41:12 pm »

We don't have time to waste. Hop on.
What!?
I said hop on, you won't slow me down. Come on!
The kid looks around one more time, more as a confirmation that this is still the real world, and then hops on your back. He's quick on his feet, that's for sure, and he clamps himself to you pretty fast, hooking his legs around your torso. Good, he won't be falling off that way.
And don't cop a feel! You say, before, rushing in the direction of the violence. The blood trail isn't hard to follow, guessing from the position of the body. It doesn't take long before you find a collection of corpses, and a strange cleaver. It looks massive, though still distinctively shaped like a butcher's knife. Are those butchers from Eveline's town here? No... They don't fit with the plague. You disregard it, and keep it moving. The eviscerated corpses lead the way, though you notice that some of them are clearly not killed in quite the same manner as Yunikki would have. You can tell an evisceration from a pulping. The difference is in how the blood splatters go. Claws lead to extensive exsanguination, compared to a pulping that keeps the blood in one place. Something's either after Yunikki, or she's after it. Either way, you've got two very lethal things on the loose.
Maybe it's the owner of that lost cleaver?
You have no patience for it.

It doesn't take long before you hear Yunikki, after crossing one of the main streets (oddly deserted). You hear something vaguely birdlike. There's more base and volume than the average birdpeople's squawkings, so you elect to follow the noise. As you get closer, you have a few lizards running away from whatever is fighting over there. Considering their usual near-suicidal attacks, that's kind of worrying. Although you suspect it's more because they see no benefit to staying rather than anything panicked or fearful. It's hard to tell one frenzied run from another, though. Alexia is quick with the Ram Dao, slicing apart the occasional straggler that tries to see if you're easy prey. The limited room in these alleyways force her to attack downward, which only adds more weight to the crushing attacks, and keeps the blood splatter from reaching the cargo on your back. You'd rather prefer if the kid didn't turn into an abomination while he's riding you. Turning the last corner, you see Yunikki screaming in what looks like it might be a triumph. There's certainly enough corpses around. She's also got an arm in her overly toothy beak, and her eyes are bugging out. You see a massive fat pigman on the ground before her, groaning and clutching a stump where an arm aught to be. Darn it. She just murdered somebody, and you're going to have to deal with that. Honestly, you'd be more worried if it wasn't for the overwhelming feeling of exertion that is flooding over you. God you just want to be home and sleep.
Alexia suddenly drops the Ram Dao, and your arm flies into a blindspot to grab an overly eager lizard. It struggles and tries to cut the arm with... a butterknife. It's not succeeding.
You elect to try something that works a bit better, and breathe out a cloud of draining gas, keeping the little wretch in the smoke for as long as possible.
It takes a little while, and Yunikki sure does scream a lot, but you drain the little lizard dry. Its body rapidly shrivels up into nearly nothing, and when your smoke cloud disappear, there's nothing left on your hands but ash.
Oh shit! That is messed up!
At the sound of that, Yunikki stops yelling and feasting. Four of her eyes are squarely on you, and you can't help but notice that she doesn't look happy. Matter of fact, she looks about ready to charge.
And then she does.

Oh crap. Plan?

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Egan_BW · « **Reply #2915 on:** April 08, 2019, 05:09:56 pm »

Take a stable stance with the demon arm up front. Alexia can absorb that much force and then counter.

KitRougard · « **Reply #2916 on:** April 08, 2019, 06:44:52 pm »

...dammit, I just had the really bad good idea of mutagenic drug potion + Yunikki = "Give it a moment, she'll be fine... Sort of."

But that is a really, REALLY bad idea.

So be sure that Alexia holds back when she counters. We know the very angry bird-thing in front of us.

omada · « **Reply #2917 on:** April 08, 2019, 09:17:16 pm »

Calm people, Sydney dealed with her two times before this

Call yukinni to reason, call her name first to make her pay attention "YUKINNI, IT'S ME SYDNEY CALM DOWN", remember her we are fighting ALONG and not against, remember her the good ol times, calm her down like last time, remember her everything is going to be okay

In case yukinni takes too long to recover her sense alexia can not just hold the charge, but grab her momentum to throw her at another direction, like a martial artist making the enemy to miss his blows or a toreador giving the bull a hard time to hit him

get ready to get that awkward and hurting hug and tell sucy to take the kid a little back from us

Egan_BW · « **Reply #2918 on:** April 08, 2019, 11:16:08 pm »

I don't think that opening our mouth is going to be the right solution when the crow beat is midair currently flying towards us.That can come in a second, once the immediate threat is dealt with.

She's dangerous enough that NOT dealing with the physical threat might kill us in this state.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2919 on:** April 11, 2019, 02:52:54 pm »

You get yourself ready to catch the charge in as little as half a second. You use your human arm to get the kid off your back in the meantime, but that doesn't work that fast.
Off! You yell, just before about 300 pounds of muscle and feathers impacts your arm as an ungodly speed. Your arm has taken quite a few hits, and nearly always came on top, but this time...
You felt that one from the tips of your fingers to the ends of your legs. You can't stop yourself from yelling in pain, nor getting the air knocked out of you. Alexia was clever enough to bend the elbow slightly, had you taken that with an arm outstretched, you would have broken that arm. You don't remember the bird having THAT much power in it! Still, you grit your teeth and push the bird down, slamming it into the ground with its own momentum. Sand is thrown up, and you feel a weight leave your back. The kid is absconding, finally. You expect that he probably felt a bit of the shock, and you hope he isn't hurt too bad. Might be a tad winded from the blow, though. You back up as the bird flashes some of its teeth in a quick bite, giving it a slap upside the head as you do so. Alexia's fast, at least.
Yunikki! Calm down! It's me, Sydney!
The beast, as if enraged by the mere mention, screams again and begins to slam it's wings against your sides. While it looks ridiculous, the hits sure aren't! Two slaps in and your human arm feels close to breaking! Alexia is quick on the uptake, and gives a resounding response by way of an uppercut. She dropped the Ram Dao, apparently taking the fact that this is Yunikki in consideration. You're glad she does that, though you doubt she's doing it with a smile. You're guessing she's still happy about being able to uppercut an entire bird-abomination in the air, that tends to help. The force of the blow is enough to bend your knees a bit. Yunikki's not taking the hit well, though. She screeches as she goes, and you take the short moment to yell again.

I will beat you into the damn ground if I have to. STAND DOWN. You find yourself snarling. You are too tired to deal with this kind of situation, and your whole arm is going to be black and blue in a bit. The bird, in the midst of scrambling up in a rather clumsy but still kind of scary manner, glares you down. It's appraising you, trying to see if you'll back down. You don't. You roll your neck and stretch your arm, hearing your joints pop and crack as you do so.
Shut up or nut up. Your call.
The two of you end up staring at eachother for a long time. You hear Sucy talking behind you, but you can't get distracted. One wrong move, and this beast will go for the killing blow. If you were in a better condition, that would probably be able to knock her down without any issue, but right now you're running on empty. Your wounds are healed just a touch, but you still feel weak. As it stands, you'd prefer just taking a damn nap. Still, you need to keep going.
After what felt like hours, the bird finally, squawks, and starts running towards you, face first and snapping it's beak. The tongue lolling out the side and sending saliva everywhere. This time, you're ready. More accurately, Alexia is. You sidestep the charge with a quick dodge, and catch the bird with your fist. You knock the wind out, and a bit of blood, and then the bird collapses entirely. It doesn't get back up right away, but you keep your hand planted over the creature's head, regardless.
Right, coming in. You hear from behind you, and before you can say anything, Scy has already planted a syringe squarely into the creature's chest. It gives another deep exhale, and then goes completely still for just a moment.
The creature's extremities begin to twitch violently, and rapidly being to lose their shape. Considerably more dainty fingers replace the clawed, gnarled ends of the wings. The twisted muscle recedes to a far more human shape, and beneath your hand, you feel the beak is receding as well. In just a few seconds more, the shape of Yunikki has completely replaced the monster.
Thank the gods.

Oh... You know, I can't tell if she's better, or worse than before. Uh, I did some fixing on her bones, earlier, but she looks pretty, uh, messed up.
You fix bones?
Osteomancer, at your service! The kid gives a little bow, though he keeps his face towards you. Shrewd.
Good. Right... I guess we could try making our way back to the hideout.
Yeah? We're not leaving the lady here, right?
Obviously not. I'll carry her.
Actually, if we find a quiet place, we can do some minor medical treatment right away. Wouldn't want her to expire on the way back...

Take an hour or more to fix Yunikki (and yourself) up a bit.
She doesn't look that bad, but you never know... Still, the longer you wait, the more trouble might arrive.

Go now.
She can survive a short trip to the hideout. If you move fast, you'll avoid much of the trouble.

Look around, first.
There might be something of interest around here.

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Egan_BW · « **Reply #2920 on:** April 11, 2019, 03:32:35 pm »

Tend to the wounded first. Best not take too many chances. If something shows up, we can... deal with it. Somehow. We'll think of something.

birdy51 · « **Reply #2921 on:** April 11, 2019, 04:41:36 pm »

I think having Sucy check her out would be good. In the meantime, we should find ourselves a corpse or two and make a meat stretcher. Something that can keep Yunkikki stable while transporting her back to the hideout.

It's a bit morbid, but hey. Can't be as bad as some of the other things that have been done today.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2922 on:** April 14, 2019, 06:01:34 pm »

You ever just scream ? I did today. But i haven't updated this in fucking three days after regularly skipping a day (for similar reasons as i was tired today). Point is i worked on something for twelve hours and it is now 1 AM. So, speedy update:

You get into a building, Sucy looks into getting Yunikki stabilized. This proves to be a good idea at first, but it quickly turns into a bit of a problem as the birds and lizards move in to feast on the corpse Yunikki left behind. (The dead butcher). You succeed in cooking up a meat stretcher, though it seriously weird out everybody present. You're a bit freaked out too, to be honest, and Yunikki will not be laying on anything dry. You... might just want to carry her on your back or something. You're big enough. Still, the fleshmorphing practice was a good distraction, if nothing else.
Sucy also states that Yunikki will be sleeping for a few hours more, and that you probably don't want to stay here that long. Things are only getting more crowded...

It's been about a week, and nobody has made a reply. Things are fine again on my end.
If nobody responds before the first of may, I'm just posting an epilogue.

omada · « **Reply #2923 on:** April 27, 2019, 11:29:37 pm »

I thought that I answered this, weird.

Get out of the place, find another hiding place a bit far from where we are

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2924 on:** April 30, 2019, 02:14:00 pm »

You need to get out of here, but an outright breakout would be a mistake. You’d have to deal with a lot of trouble on the way back, and with Yunikki down and out, you doubt that this would work out very well. So, you’ll have to find another location to lay low at for a while, where there isn’t massive amount of mutants ready to tear you all to shreds. Of course, there’s a big difference between a goal and a plan, and currently you’ve got a lot more goal than plan. Still, you’ve been inactive for far too long. You briefly look back at the meat stretcher you made, but considering that you’re big enough to easily carry Yunikki, and the kid has functioning legs, it might be best if you didn’t use potentially infected flesh to help transport her. Still, it was good practice on the fleshmolding. Maybe you’ll be able to abuse that when you’ve got that bone-zombie army you’re planning. But, again, goals before plans. Let’s look at getting out of here first.

Step one is finding an exit. Unfortunately, in contrast to the more western buildings you’re used to, these white cubes that the east use are much harder to navigate out of. Large windows are rare, even getting a second floor is unlikely at best. Even though the inside of the house is comfortable, it’s hard to get in or out. The material they use, however, is at least a bit less tough. Rather than the sturdy brick walls, they prefer a much more crumbly material. It must be intensely easy to fix up and colour, though, and the bucket filled with some solid, chunky stone and a pitcher of water nearby implies that it’s simple. Might be a sort of clay. It’s hard to imagine why glass is so rare here, though, not like they’re missing any sand. Must be to air out the homes against the desert heat.
But, getting to the point: these walls are crumbly. Even if the front door is too busy, you might be able to scrape away at the walls with your massive demon arm. The buildings were pretty close together…
Of course, the noise might be a problem. Still, it’s the best thing you can think of. The alternative is going outside and just fighting off whatever awaits out there. If things go wrong, at least you can bottleneck them in here. Sucy excels at bottlenecks, as well, if she can get some fire going. Let’s just hope these buildings aren’t much more flammable than the average wooden home. You tell your plans to your compatriots, and they seem to agree, for the most part. Sucy rolled her eyes (hard to tell through the bird mask, but you can recognize it anywhere, and began working on some of her alchemy. She’s preparing for the inevitable siege. Kind of a negative Nancy.
Anyway, it doesn’t take more than one experimental scrape to confirm what you thought. Your demonic fingers are capable of scraping away at the wall, loosening chunks at a time. You’re fairly certain thing will get more difficult when you get to the older parts of the wall that weren’t recently fixed up, but it’s progress. The scraping is a bit loud, but not horrifically so. The kid, meanwhile, it looking Yunikki over for any other troubles. He doesn’t find much more than before, apart from a small bulge around her ribs. As he touches it, he eventually asks for a scalpel from Sucy. You stop scraping for a moment to keep watch over the shenanigans that are clearly occurring. Sucy refuses, though after a short, quiet talk she does walk over there with her own cutting implement. The kid points it out, and…
How about I stop you right there! What are you doing!?
There’s fragment of bone here. Apparently, it used to be in her lungs, but the transformation must have caused it to be pushed out. Or festered out, at any rate. I don’t have as much research on the transformation as I’d like.
And you’re just going to cut it out?
The location shows that it won’t be that bad. What little bleeding there is will be fixed with a quick bandage. I’m not an amateur
You didn’t exactly study floramancy for the healing properties
Fair enough, but since Eveline’s gone I’ve had to pick up the slack.

You end up relenting in your questions, and get back to scraping while Sucy and the kid get the bone fragment out. The kid happily takes it, after Sucy collected some samples. You didn’t pay it much mind. You think you managed to scrap through the wall of the house you’re hiding in, and now you’re almost into the neighbor’s house. You’re fairly certain this one had a second story window, if you saw it right. Might allow you to move to the rooftops more easily, you won’t have to bring everybody up there one by one by wallclimbing. After a few minutes of scraping away, you finally just elect to punch your way in. Once you have a hole, making it big enough for you will only take a moment. Chunks of the material fall away, and you finally have a hole for your prodigious size.
When you enter the house, you’re happy to note that there is an upstairs section. You’re less happy to note that it uses a ladder. A rather small hatch. Too small for you to fit through…

Well, here’s the thing though. Your companions could use it. If they get up there, you might be able to distract the horde outside for a moment. Or lure them to a different house with the right application of magic or a well-thrown rock. Then, they use the window to get to the roof, and you can just wallclimb. From there on, it should be a cinch to start making your way back. Of course, Yunikki being unconscious might make it harder for the rest to get to the roof.

Choices, choices.

Tear the hatch apart, you’re getting on that second floor.
You tore through a wall. What’s a ceiling going to do?

Play distraction
If your team gets moving, you’re fairly certain they’ll be able to get it all moving. Maybe that meat bed you made could be useful, if you find a way to keep the kid covered as they carry. Sucy’s suit should keep her safe.

Keep on digging.
You could just keep going through walls. It might happen that you attract attention of the birds outside, though. Or lizards. You’re not sure anymore.

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Author Topic: Web of Life: A Drider's Adventure (Ended) (Read 185057 times)

Liquefied Spleens

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Liquefied Spleens

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omada

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Devastator

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Egan_BW

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KitRougard

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omada

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Egan_BW

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Liquefied Spleens

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Egan_BW

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birdy51

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omada

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