trans_9 | Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The monsters recognize this one. The smell of their own's blood is still on her axe. And she's carrying fresh meat, meat barely gone cold. It's too much to resist.

They begin to flank her, trapping her in a circle and standing their ground. Without the strange atmosphere tampering with their powers, they are confident and coordinated as hyenas. The biggest one sets itself in front of Karis, standing a few feet away, waiting for her to make the first move.

"To Hell with all of you," Karis mutters under her breath. She's ready to go down fighting if she needs to. She's ready to die. Always has been. Part of her hoped that she'd finally end up dead in battle, but she's always come through. One way or another. Not that she's going to question luck. So she does what she does best.

She feints at the one in front, then immediately turns buries her blade into one of the creatures that thinks it might catch her. And then everything starts going to shit.

The axe doesn't cleave straight through the one to her side with the same ease as it did earlier on the mission - their skins are stronger now, what with the dampening node removed. But it does cut a deep and bloody gash into it, leaving this unfortunate creature to bleed out slowly rather than dying instantly. Another monster leaps on its dying comrade and pulls it away from the battlefield, intending to eat the fresh meat itself.

The one in front stumbles over its oversized hands and crashes into Karis' knees as it falls. Another leaps at Karis from behind, smart enough to try and disarm her - in this case, literally. Its jaws wrap around the arm holding the axe and its neck wrenches, trying to rip Karis apart like a particularly stinky pulled pork sandwich. Another comes from behind and closes its mouth around Howard's corpse's foot, trying to tug away a quick prize.

"No! Not yet, you son of a-" Karis cursing turns into an incoherent howl. She's tugged off balance by the wrench on her arm - but she's still holding together. The magic that makes sure she lives is a bit stronger than that. She lashes out with a booted foot, driving it into the creature. She tugs on Howard's body, clinging to it gamely as she tries to elbow the creature tearing at her arm.

She's not giving up anytime soon.

The kick hits the creature clear in the underbelly, and when Karis retracts her foot from the wound she's inflicted, entrails come with it. The creature retreats, but the blow is clearly fatal, and its brethren are already descending on it. The elbow hits the other one in the face, and it breaks its hold on her arm with a hiss.

The one tugging Howard's body backs up in a panic, surprised that Karis is fighting so viciously for something that's already dead, then decides to go after the guts-covered foot. Both the surviving monsters on top of Karis attack her right leg, ripping and tearing at her thigh.

That attack seems to be more effective. Especially since both of them are going after her. Something gives way and she staggers, forced to drop Howard's body. She goes down on top of it and then whips her axe around at one of the things tearing her leg off. The damage is done, though. That leg looks like hamburger meat. Or worse.

Well, today started out great. Ended shitty.

The axe hits one in the face, but not enough to kill so much as maim. The monster gives a human shriek that it must have copied from one of its earlier victims and attacks Karis with its claws, stabbing and slicing through the back around her defunct kidneys. The other continues to worry the leg, and finally, with a snap that sounds so mundanely like dried wood that the reality is much more sickening, rips the whole thing off.

Tomorrow is another day, Karis! You might want to start looking into hoverchairs.

"I'm gonna kill you-" is all that Kari manages before she swings the axe again at the one tearing at her torso. Shit, she liked those kidneys, even if they didn't work. She buries it in its skull, then yanks it back, dragging herself with one arm as she tries to make sure nothing is getting after her from behind.

Well, business as usual. Except for the whole missing leg thing.

OH SHIT KARIS IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY because the other monsters are jealous of the one with a zombie drumstick and want some thigh of their own.

Two more descend on her (and a third on the one Karis just lobotomized - cannibalism ain't just for the undead) and attack, in tandem, her foot and her knee. Her foot doesn't taste very good, because of the boot, but that doesn't seem to be a huge deterrent.

Karis snarls in defiance as they descend on her and immediately she lashes out with her axe, kicking at them, trying to force them back. She didn't feel the pain except as a ghost, a faint ache, a dull wrenching. But she still fought. Having only one leg makes it a bit problematic though. "Get the Hell off of me, you-"

More pointless cursing. This was going to get worse before it got better.

This removal's a bit uglier sounding than the first one - rather than a crack, there's a sound like wet canvas being torn as the creatures take Karis' leg and part of her pelvis and drag it away.

"I hope you choke and die!" Karis screams after them, taking one more futile swipe with her axe. Then she slumps back on Howard's corpse, staring at the sky.

Shit.

That didn't go as planned. She could probably drag herself to the shuttle, but that would mean leaving Howie for the corpse-eaters and like hell she's going to do that anytime soon.

Backup arrived as the creatures were distracted by Karis' leg. They were soon distracted from that when Goliath threw another of their number at them, ripping the leg back in the sudden confusion.

The sight of Karis already half-dismembered but still (it seemed) alive was shocking, but none of them had the time to afford shock. He set her leg down and picked her up instead. The body beneath her would need carrying as well, and if he was to bring her leg back with her and locate the other, he would need at least one hand free.

"Can you hang on to me by your own power?"

That might be difficult. Her other leg was already hamburger meat (or close to it) and being torn apart by a couple of the creatures a couple dozen yards away. Karis glares up at Goliath for a moment and then nods.

"Of course I can! I'm not some mewling weakling. Gimme your damn hand."

She stretched out a clawed limb.

Goliath grabbed her hand and swung her onto his back, tucking his wings around the remains of her torso to help hold her in place as she grabbed his neck. He reached down to grab the other body, with only the briefest pause as he recognized the young human he'd found robbing his castle. The one he'd only so recently failed to defend.

There was no time for such thoughts. Howard's small body fit easily in one of his arms, and with Karis' other leg a lost cause, he grabbed the remaining one and charged the creatures, roaring to scatter the cowardly.

Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

Re: KARIS AND NPC

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject