This guy is hiding. Can't see him, can't hear him move, (but might not be moving), but can smell him. He is here.
This is a sneaky guy. Killing by befriending the victim. Killing silently a long way from home. Killing in a way that is strange and bad and wrong. This is a guy who is the opposite of what a dragon is, and everything he does, everything he knows is different from what a dragon can do. He doesn't know our kind of fighting. That means there should be a chance.
Jump to the top of the statue in the middle of this room, so all sides are equadistant to your perch.
Shut your eyes, concentrate on your ears, and roar. Loudly. Really loudly. Wherever the echos are funny, that's where he is.
And then smash.
You feel the urge to respond, but manage to hold yourself back. You may not know what he is or how he fights, but you know enough to know his words can't be trusted, that his words don't lead to anything good, only death. He is a predator without honour, that ambushes with words, deception and trickery. Instead you jump away, giving yourself a boost with a flap of your wings. You don't know where he is. He could be anywhere... except for the center of the room. On top of that sculpture.
If you go there, you'll be out of range of his melee strikes (or at least a human's melee strikes) and if he chose to use blasters to attack from range instead... you could use your wings to block a blaster shot or two. It would be very painful and you'd lose use of your wings, greatly reducing your speed, but at least you'd still be alive. And you'll know where is. From here you can have an overview of the entire area, ready to pounce at him the moment you locate him, the moment he makes a mistake and reveals himself.
You land on top of the sculpture at the center of the room, the slippery and fragile glass making for a difficult landing point. Some of the structures poking out of it break simply from you landing on them, falling to the ground behind you and breaking into thousands of tiny fragments, their jagged edges poking your scales without penetrating then. You have to dig your claws into it to steady yourself, forming more cracks, even breaking some of the bridges in the process.
"Ouch. I really liked that one." the voice says, though it doesn't sound very sad about it.
You have no words for him. Instead you roar as loudly as you can, both a challenge for him to face you and a threat to intimidate him, a display of strength to shake him, hopefully forcing him to make a mistake.
...
There's no response, just the sound of your roar echoing back from the walls of the large chamber, some part of your mind noticing how different it sounds compared to other places you're familiar with. You also remember how sound changes depending on where you are, how even in total darkness you can tell if a room is large or small, open or enclosed, simply due to the way sound echoes within it. You can tell that this area is large but completely enclosed, no ways leading in or out as far as you can tell. If only you had more practice with this or more refined hearing, maybe you could use it to gain an even better understanding of what's around you? As it stands, you can gain nothing more from it.
You wait and listen carefully nonetheless, watching for any sign that could tell you were he is. You can't use his speech, he somehow makes it come from many places, like it's coming from everywhere in this place (some sort of machine's doing?) but if he makes any noise while moving around... Then suddenly a *click*. You turn your head and tense up. There! A distortion in the entrance hallway, like the air above a hot pipe. You hesitate for a moment, unsure of whether to attack or dodge. But a moment later the distortion starts fading away, so you attack.
You pounce, the force of the jump sending more glass fragments flying behind you. You can't see him, but you make a guess, angling your limbs to attack as wide an area as you can. When the time feels right, you swing... but your claws hit nothing but air. Instead, it's your tail that strikes against something, a tingling sensation spreading from the impact point. With the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of distortions intensifying around the impact point, swirling up into a blue light and then a hole in space, a ring of blue distortions and through it clothing, human clothing. Your other eye notices a small machine on the floor that wasn't there before unfolding, releasing a small sphere, flinging it towards the ceiling. It all happens too quickly for you to do anything. You can only watch as it flies upwards, reaches eye-level and then explodes. You lose consciousness.
A strange insectoid predator, hiding in cracks and dark places. Traps. Poison. A lair that is a trap, a pretty place built to kill. Keeping the victim alive but trapped and unable to fight, feeding on it while it's still alive.
"Spider" the dream tells you in an unfamiliar language.
You wake up what feels like a moment later. You slowly get up on unsteady legs. Even with your eyes closed, the explosion was enough to blind you from one eye and leave your ears incapable of hearing anything but ringing.
Gained status: dazed, deafened, half-blindStill, it wasn't all for nothing. You know more now. He hides himself, somehow. He sets traps. This one was meant to maim and disable, though you can't discount the possibility that he may have others meant to kill. The only positive is that he can't set those traps without at least partially revealing himself. Whatever he's doing to hide himself, it is sensitive to movement. It might be able to hide
his movement pretty well, but other movement happening near it confuses it.
"Impressive. That was close. Did you come here alone? With your skills, I wouldn't blame you for feeling confident."You can somehow still hear his voice, weakened but audible, despite all other sound being being replaced by a constant buzz. He sounds... he's straining somewhat, but he's still confident. You think the explosion hurt him as well. Or maybe it was the strike from your tail.
You scan the area with your one good eye. Nothing has changed. The ground on the other side of the table is full of glass shards, that's about it. They're not dangerous, their pointy ends shouldn't be able to penetrate your scales if you step on them. You can't see him. Hiding again. Or maybe setting up another trap.
Age: some months (wyrmling)
Size: about the size of a human (if bipedal)
Status: dazed, deafened, half-blind, satiated
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: scales
Abilities:
- Short Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards for short distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Maintenance Tunnels:
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes
- 2 holdout blaster pistols (roughly 20 shots each, effective range 20m, HSB-200)
- Low quality vibroknife (low battery)
- Eiwhyl's Clinic:
- 576 credits (5 orange, 11 blue, 7 red, 4 grey, 6 cyan, 4 pink)
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Warm blanket
- Basic Datapad (contains datacard with encrypted files)
- Datacard with human medical information
- Datacard with human language dictionary
- Datacard with dragon info compilation
- Datacard with story about hunter of dragons
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (dropped in hallway)
- Large hooded cloak
- Half-used medpac
- Purse with credit-reader:
- 135 credits (2 orange, 1 blue, 1 red, 1 grey)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- pack of smoke sticks
- lighter
- keycard with symbol
- small glass statue of bird
- Ali's Apartment: A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic (Lair): Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.
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Topic: Surviving in an Alien World [Suggestion Game] (Read 106810 times)