Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

[meat_mooks]

In the middle of one of Stacy's nights, a distress beacon comes in. A desperate S.O.S. shows up on the screens. Source: one of Stacy's mission shuttles, the one that went to the small colony planet 'Eden' to answer a distress call.

|| Crematia, Goliath and Jorge. Please report to the Observation Deck for a rescue mission. ||

The rescue crew has little time to react and prepare. Within a matter of minutes, the available hands on deck are equipped and stuffed into an unarmed shuttle, then sent down to the planet surface. The shuttle lands a few hundred yards from the radio tower, the source of the beacon. The original crew is still inside the tower.

And between the tower and the shuttle, fifty strange, malformed beasts loll about in the baking desert sun. They're the pinkish color and texture of uncooked plucked chickens, the size of bears and armed with mouths large enough to fit a dog in. Drool dribbles from their fangs in thick ropes. Their hands are unsettlingly humanoid, with six long fingers that taper into a needle point. They don't look even a little concerned about the shuttle.

[OOC: I will be traveling tomorrow, so please feel free to NPC your own monsters and cause carnage. This is your chance to get your character mutilated, or have them save the day with a heroic gesture! Threadjacking and teaming up is encouraged! The monsters are intelligent enough to learn from imitation, but otherwise just lunge at you and bite you. They can also mimic sounds, but they are no longer flammable. Alas. If you want me to NPC for you, drop me a line or tell me in the subject title.]

Comments

[mercyisweakness]

Crematia normally would have gone into her perfect form and just kill them all, but she holds herself back. She wants to know of these creatures.

So as a human in a glimmering green gown, she strolls up to the monsters, unafraid.

[not_the_philistine]

It's not Goliath's style to attack creatures that haven't already attacked him first, so he follows the woman with his eye on the lolling beasts.

That baking sun is doing his night vision no favors, but he doesn't raise a wing to shade himself. To do so might be interpreted, too early, as an aggressive gesture.

[meat_mooks]

The monsters aren't afraid of her, either. For the most part they look as if they're ignoring her. One of the smallest ones lopes up to her with a lopsided gait and sniffs, deciding whether to attack her now or leave her to the pack leader.

They are, however, intimidated by Goliath. One of the largest ones circles around him, trying to get behind him, then lunges to take a bite of the strange winged man's ankles. Another leaps for Goliath's jugular, fast as a leopard.

[mercyisweakness]

She ignored the little beast, interested in the larger ones circling around this strange gargoyle. When they leap, Crematia of course did a little hop away from the three beasts, wanting to see how all of them fight.

[not_the_philistine]

Goliath had done a fair job of pretending not to notice the large creature as it put itself in a position to stalk him. He knew the routines of territorial pack predators. He was one. He had been waiting to see which of the alpha warriors would challenge him, and how.

He sidestepped the bite to his ankles and grabbed the lunging beast out of midair, digging his claws into its flesh as he threw it into the other beast before it could launch its next attack. He threw a kick at the downed pair, not relishing the idea of killing them, but knowing that there was a chance if he decisively defeated one of the pack alphas and another that had challenged him openly early on, he might spare himself and the rest of the rescue crew trouble from the rest.

It was a slim chance, but still a chance.

[meat_mooks]

Unfortunately, since they now all read Goliath as a threat, their intention is to take him down as quickly as possible. The two on the ground scramble to get out of the way in vain, and are stampeded by the others as they rush to either get at Goliath or get away from him. At least six try to leap on Goliath at the same time, and a few others go for his tail.

Swarm tactics. They're what's in style.

In the chaos, the littler one tracking Crematia around decides to take a violent course of action, and charges at her.

[mercyisweakness]

Before the small whelp could sink its fangs into the woman, she suddenly expanded in size, wings growing out of her back and red scales covering her pale skin.

In the woman's place is a large, monstrous red dragon roaring a challenge. So massive was she that she stepped on both the little beast and a nearby larger one.