The tunnel seemed to have no end, hours seemed to pass even though the Witcher knew it had only been minutes he knew because he’d been counting to pass the time. He stopped dead still as he listened, he could hear something. Droplets of blue blood lay scattered and ended by the wall it didn’t go further down the tunnel instead it stopped here. Muffled by bricks and faint by distance he pondered on this then inspected the wall nearby, his hands touched the stones thick and heavy as he let his hand slide from brick to brick he finally found one that was loose, loose to the point that when he pushed, it fell through revealing another path .
He stepped back and focused as he made an Aard sign, the shockwave blasted the loosely held bricks and opened up the path. “Witcher’s have augmented senses and with the use of potions we can increase part of our functions to work even more efficiently… yet even a human couldn’t miss this…this feeling of …death… strange aura…decay..hmm… come draw your dagger and be ready…I see light up ahead.” The path was narrow and barely large enough for the Witcher to fit through yet he managed nonetheless, he noted the smeared blue blood on the wall. Again this odd blood, it certaintly wasn’t anything he’d seen before. As he made his way further down the small path he reached a large hollow room that was barren but had small openings at the corners which let some light in, so they were close to the surface now. He heard the voice before he saw the shapes appear from the darkness, features barely seeable by the few streaks of light.
“We are … one…we are part of our body.” The voices all spoke as one and it filled the large room with its unified voice. One voice, one body. “We are the remnants of her will, you must join us in our reunion…” The Witcher’s eyes adjusted and saw them.
The Witcher raised an eyebrow at them, some of these creatures had died long ago and been reanimated that he was sure of. The state of decay from the pale skeletal figure told him as much, and then there were those that seemed almost healthy if you ignored the mortal injuries, those must’ve been the kidnapped people. They didn’t seem hostile yet the Witcher slowly let his hands fall to the hilt of his silver sword, the way they spoke the way they acted. It was only a matter of time before they did attack. Until then he decided he’d ask about this reunion.
“Say I was interested…what is this reunion ?”
“The Reunion is when we all gather, her children become one. We …unite …and become her image…her goal…yet. We are. Not her.”
“Who is this ‘her’ you keep referring too ?”
“She is the calamity that fell from the skies; to her we owe our immortality. She asks only that we join her, as we become one with her. Her gift is bliss eternity under her guidance, is that not what all those that live above seek yet are too afraid to grasp ?” there is a pause from al lthe voices. “Do you wish to join us, undamaged vessels will serve her purpose much better than ours. Rotting, decayed and lost.”
“Prehaps I am interested…immortality is ..interesting aspect. But I must know more before I do.” The Witcher had no intentions to join them of course, he’d much rather die then give up his own free will. He was merely digging deeper, learning more about these creatures. “What is her purpose…you never told me her name.”
“Her name …her name.” there’s a pause as they think. “Our purpose is to spread, to infect people with our gift. So that they may. Adore our gift, serve her purpose. We want all to be happy, yet that cannot happen while you all think as individuals. Join us, and you’ll naught suffer from such…horrid fates.”
“Why do you keep avoiding her name, is it that difficult for you to answer me ?”
“No.”
The Witcher drew his sword and shook his head slowly, his eyes remaining ever vigilantly on them. They’d take this as hostile and attack surely yet they still stood watching him, with their blank expressions and almost ghostly appearance.
“You’ll fail. We know this.”
“I’m a Witcher, I don’t fail.” He said with a grin
[CRP] The Dead, should stay Dead
Moderator: Community Team
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Silence
Re: [CRP] The Dead, should stay Dead
Youken glanced at the witcher from the shadows, and muttered something obscure about beetles. What his new obsession with these creatures was, not even he could fathom, but he liked the littel animals. Not that that was important now.
"I'd just like to say that he doesn't speak for me." he said motioning toward the witcher. He tapped the man on his shoulder as if by accident with his tail, his dagger looped in it further down. He too didn't mean what he said, but he did understand the art of bluffing.
"Personally, I have failed before, and the idea that you can stop that from happening..." his eyes glow greedily, even if it was an artificial light, it looked as real as the genuine article. "I would rather live than die, and I don't have very many gifts from others to call my own." he sniffed the air. If what he gathered was correct... "And I think that you would rather have fully in tact than maimed bodies... whatever you are... So here we have a mutually beneficial arrangement." the changeling extended his senses as far as he could, cataloging the position of every creature. He didn't know how this worked, and he definitely did not know what he could count on as being an enemy. Best to treate everything with caution just in case.
"So either you answer our questions, and you may get potentially unharmed bodies, or you force us to fight and even if you subdue us, the goods have been damaged. It is one of the first things that they teach thieves. If you can get away with minimum damage to yourself and the goods, do so, even if it is a little more laborious. Once we are one with you, as far as I gather, we will know this anyway, so why bother keeping anything from us for the time being."
The changeling sat down and took out a coin, performing a few of his most impressive tricks. He was trying to distract the masses of creatures here, but inwardly he had another plan. If need be, he'd ransom himself, holding a dagger to his own throat. For now though, a distraction might just give the witcher an edge. Behind him, he used his tail in the dust to draw a rough plan of the room, marking with an X the location of every potential threat. He was fairly certain that nothing but the witcher could see it.
"So tell me," he said, absentmindedly. He would never have been able to pull this off if in Alder's form. He needed every ounce of his coordination and concentration for this. "Are you the only thing... err, things, err, whatever you are, in here, or are there other creatures here? By the way, I love the whole voice synchronization thing, it really gives the whole "weird out of this world" feel to you. For that matter, what are you?"
"I'd just like to say that he doesn't speak for me." he said motioning toward the witcher. He tapped the man on his shoulder as if by accident with his tail, his dagger looped in it further down. He too didn't mean what he said, but he did understand the art of bluffing.
"Personally, I have failed before, and the idea that you can stop that from happening..." his eyes glow greedily, even if it was an artificial light, it looked as real as the genuine article. "I would rather live than die, and I don't have very many gifts from others to call my own." he sniffed the air. If what he gathered was correct... "And I think that you would rather have fully in tact than maimed bodies... whatever you are... So here we have a mutually beneficial arrangement." the changeling extended his senses as far as he could, cataloging the position of every creature. He didn't know how this worked, and he definitely did not know what he could count on as being an enemy. Best to treate everything with caution just in case.
"So either you answer our questions, and you may get potentially unharmed bodies, or you force us to fight and even if you subdue us, the goods have been damaged. It is one of the first things that they teach thieves. If you can get away with minimum damage to yourself and the goods, do so, even if it is a little more laborious. Once we are one with you, as far as I gather, we will know this anyway, so why bother keeping anything from us for the time being."
The changeling sat down and took out a coin, performing a few of his most impressive tricks. He was trying to distract the masses of creatures here, but inwardly he had another plan. If need be, he'd ransom himself, holding a dagger to his own throat. For now though, a distraction might just give the witcher an edge. Behind him, he used his tail in the dust to draw a rough plan of the room, marking with an X the location of every potential threat. He was fairly certain that nothing but the witcher could see it.
"So tell me," he said, absentmindedly. He would never have been able to pull this off if in Alder's form. He needed every ounce of his coordination and concentration for this. "Are you the only thing... err, things, err, whatever you are, in here, or are there other creatures here? By the way, I love the whole voice synchronization thing, it really gives the whole "weird out of this world" feel to you. For that matter, what are you?"
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The_Cell
Re: [CRP] The Dead, should stay Dead
The Cell-
It took a moment for one to step forward, the decaying of the other bodies made it more challenging for it to speak and maintain itself. All efforts had to be focused on these living and fresh bodies, the skeletal corpse stepped forward its bones clattering in the dark. It considered the younger one first, its ability it could sense it was so much like their original yet so much apart.
“You fail to understand us.” It said. “Whether or not you agree matters little to us, dead or alive your bodies will serve us. However alive would be more ideal but not necessary .” There was a slow hollow chuckle which made its bone teeth click together. “We are the cells of thee original, we shall gather for the reuinion and be whole again.”
There was one overall difference between the N Prime cells and the Remnant cells, they could not tap into their base primal form meaning that their ability to regenerate, to be highly infectious and generally be a high risk threat were minial. However if given a suitable host, they still could multiply and infect the nervous system of the host slowly crawling up into their brain until the entire host was no more. The skeletal figure walked back into the mass of bodies, nine of them it had acquired yet the skeletal figure lost itself in the mass and left only speaking one last time, its words hollow and seeming everywhere.
“You will be part of our Reunion.”
(Note- 9 enemies of which are all slow and in a state of decay. Do not allow them to infect you, Youken has permission to do as he pleases in combat with 4 of the 9 enemies.)
It took a moment for one to step forward, the decaying of the other bodies made it more challenging for it to speak and maintain itself. All efforts had to be focused on these living and fresh bodies, the skeletal corpse stepped forward its bones clattering in the dark. It considered the younger one first, its ability it could sense it was so much like their original yet so much apart.
“You fail to understand us.” It said. “Whether or not you agree matters little to us, dead or alive your bodies will serve us. However alive would be more ideal but not necessary .” There was a slow hollow chuckle which made its bone teeth click together. “We are the cells of thee original, we shall gather for the reuinion and be whole again.”
There was one overall difference between the N Prime cells and the Remnant cells, they could not tap into their base primal form meaning that their ability to regenerate, to be highly infectious and generally be a high risk threat were minial. However if given a suitable host, they still could multiply and infect the nervous system of the host slowly crawling up into their brain until the entire host was no more. The skeletal figure walked back into the mass of bodies, nine of them it had acquired yet the skeletal figure lost itself in the mass and left only speaking one last time, its words hollow and seeming everywhere.
“You will be part of our Reunion.”
(Note- 9 enemies of which are all slow and in a state of decay. Do not allow them to infect you, Youken has permission to do as he pleases in combat with 4 of the 9 enemies.)
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Silence
Re: [CRP] The Dead, should stay Dead
They were about to attack. Youken could sense it both instinctively and logically. Their body language screamed of it, and his danger sense was going crazy. The time for talk and negotiation was over. Of course it had never really started, but those seconds he had bought might have given the witcher chance to prepare his move. Now he had barely seconds to prepare his. He doubted that changing his form would help much here, which meant that he was looking at a tooth and nail fight. He swept up some dust from the floor with his left hand before pausing. Fine, if that was how it was to be, then he should at least seize the initiative while he could and move first. He could sense that the witcher was about to move as well.
His job here wasn’t to cut down this horde, rather to keep them off of the back of the witcher. “Grains of sand” he muttered and then glanced at the dust in his hand. All of this had taken place in the second that the ambling half alive creature had been stumbling back to his horde. He’d never make it all the way if Youken’s plan worked. That enemy’s back was turned, and that made him an easier target. He tossed his coin as high as he could, hoping to take the gaze of a few of his opponents with it. His tail whipped through the air, and his plain dagger was slid up the length of it before it was released at just a tiny distance past the perfect point. Not a perfect toss, but good none the less.
Youken didn’t bother to see whether his dagger had hit the target. Instead he instantly retreated behind the witcher, ducking around him, moving as if he was simply an obstacle that needed to be avoided in his retreat. That was, he’d been told, the best way to move past an ally without hindering them. He dropped some of the dust as he moved, but that was unimportant really. The trick here would be not to engage the masses, but to retreat and only engage in single combats. He was a changeling, and thus his only real weapon here was his mind and his instincts. His body just wouldn’t keep up with the fight if he trusted it. That was just the way that his anatomy worked. He placed the witcher squarely between himself and the horde with a leap to his left, and then turned back to face them. The witcher knew what he was doing, but he could also act as Youken’s distraction. By staying back, he knew that he wouldn’t have to fight directly. Cowardly, but the best tactic for staying alive here. If he was right, they wouldn’t have the reflex to get past the witcher so long as Youken stayed light on his feet.
Sai in hand, Youken glanced around for a target. He had already moved a butcher’s knife to his tail. Then he made a mistake on his footwork in staying in sync with the witcher (although what he was calling footwork was more a complex series of calculations about the flow of the battle, and making sure that he was in the right place to not get caught out in the open, and found himself just a little more exposed than he meant to be. He’d anticipated that though. If these creatures felt pain, then a handful of dust thrown into their exposed innards would at least slow them. He was glad that they didn’t seem to have any real artillery, or he’d be in trouble by now. This whole plan worked on the thought that if they couldn’t get past the witcher, then he could weave in and out of the frey at will.
Strange... the creature didn’t seem to be that phased by the handful of dust. That didn’t bode well... Youken ducked out of the way of a swing from a... was that a sword? Well that explained what became of the adventurers. His tail flickered upwards towards the man’s throat with a butcher’s knife, but simultaneously, he struck with his sai bearing right hand towards the chest area of his assailant. Blocking two attacks simultaneously is never easy, and the infected man found himself falling backwards towards the ranks of his allies, pushing them back as they attempted to move around him to get to that hyperactive squirrel of a changeling. That was all Youken needed. He stamped his right foot down, leaned forwards as if to press his advantage, and then leapt suddenly backwards, moving back behind the witcher, and darting out the other side to slip his sai between the shoulder blades of one that the witcher was dealing with. He then spun to the right again, moving back out of the range of the thickest fighting. That last one had been too close. He really couldn’t afford to get locked in combat. He glanced behind him. If they could lure the creatures into the tunnel that they had come from, then not so many of them would be able to converge on them at once. But then he would be reduced to useless as his current method of fighting relied on the space that he could move around in. No, not a good idea. Doing something like that would lock them in place, and both of them needed to move more than that. He shook his head and reassessed the battle. Not going too badly but...
Youken cursed as the blow to the back of his head pulled him out of his revelry. “Note to self, stay alert,” he thought as he staggered away from the source of the blow, his tail waving blindly in an attempt to keep his assailant at bay whilst he regained his senses. Another came at him from his right, and tried to do something, grabbing Youken, as the boy felt something move through his body. His restrainer had obviously not seen his fangs though. As he was grabbed, he grabbed back in even, and sunk his teeth into the thing’s neck, tearing as he did so. Both creatures staggered away from each other, and Youken’s connection... that connection that for a second had made him feel so glorious, a part of something larger than himself, was broken.
It felt more weird losing the sensation than gaining it. Indeed, Youken just stood there dummstruck for half a second, not that it would have made much of a difference if he hadn’t. He had already been stood still, grappling with the infected creature for longer than he should have. The fight had moved and he had been pinned down, unable to move with it. Now, he found himself caught out in the open, the creatures claiming to be “cells of the original” were now surrounding him. Two of them, plus the one that was currently getting back up from where Youken had bitten him. That made three in total. Slowly, he retreated, moving back one step for every one of theirs. Every time one got a bit confident and stepped ahead of the others, Youken struck with a thrown butcher’s knife, keeping himself just out of arms length, and them just advancing slowly. Two of them had butcher’s knives protruding from them, but he only had one left, and his sai. He wouldn’t be able to... his back came up against something hard, and Youken swore as he saw grins appear on the faces of his three opponents. There was no way at this rate that he could climb the surface before they got there. Youken braced himself and prepared to go wild, desperately hoping that he could do something to stop them, but inwardly knew that he wasn’t a fighting creature. They were slow, but there were three of them, and Youken was thoroughly cornered. A coin danced around the fingers of his left hand as he tried desperately to form a plan. “Err... can we negotiate?” he smiled thinly as the creatures slowly closed the gap between himself and them.
He glanced down at his coin.
“You know that if you-” he began, trying to give himself some time to think. Maybe if... “-continue to fight-” he tossed his last butcher’s knife towards a creature locked in combat with the witcher. With the same motion, he spun to his left, right arm flashing out in a wide arc towards the thing on his left. The swing was undisciplined as ever, but it was sudden enough, that it had the desired effect. Since it came mid sentence, the creature wasn’t really ready for it, and so found itself moving away from the blow rather than exploiting how poorly executed it was. That was all that Youken needed. He redoubled his attack, swinging his tail overhead, just after he had flicked his coin into the creature’s face. That would distract it enough for it not to take advantage of his poor attack again. He then spun to the right, throwing his tail towards the face of the thing on his left. Taken by surpirise by two attacks, and then again by a third as the changeling turned away and somehow launched another attack with a tail, the man took a very weak blow to the head. Youken’s tail didn’t have any power, but the blow had kept him away from the boy for another half second. He had created himself some room, but the other two were rapidly closing in again. He lurched towards the man directly ahead of him, throwing himself away from the wall as the one on his right tried to catch up, and the one on his left was simply pushed away from himself. That one met his blow with an even counter, a blow directly to the boy’s gut which pushed the wind out of him.
Youken really hadn’t been expecting that. His dagger had formed a large gash across the creature’s chest, but his opponent had acted without any regard for its own safety, and that had caught Youken off guard. He could barely fall over to avoid the blow of the next opponent, cursing fluently in abyssal as he did so. From the floor, he knew that it was pretty much all over. He was a changeling, not really built for direct combat. This was not his best scenario. Desparately, he looped his tail around the leg of one of his opponents, and pulled with his hands at another, hoping that the distraction of them falling over would give him a little more room to move and think, but it was a vain hope. He didn’t really have the strength even to pull one over, let alone two.
As the third one leaned in towards, him, he changed tactic again, bearing his fangs and biting down hard on an ankle. It was a fate that he had almost been subjected to himself, but he had avoided it by changing the size of his ankles when that drunken fairy had closed its jaws. He knew for a fact that there were ligaments and arteries around that area key to the functioning of the human leg. It was the Achilles tendon he aimed for, and the fact that the thing fell instantly on top of him told him that he had hit his target. He grunted as the body hit him, but instead of shifting it off, rolled sideways, manipulating the body between himself and one of the two attackers, with his claws he tore into the fallen thing.
He wasn’t just cutting, he was gripping and pulling, maximising the damage of each blow. Somewhere, he had lost his sai, but he didn’t really care. His danger sense was going wild... of course it was, yet he was still somehow fighting. The thing that he was ripping apart hardly stood a chance. It was its companions that worried him. One was the other side of the body, its blows falling uselessly against the fallen body of its ally, (or was it the fallen body of itself? These things were sort of the same thing... it wasn’t important), but the other-
Suddenly Youken was pinned down, and he felt his will slipping away again. Desperately, he kicked out backwards, but the damn thing was a lot stronger than he was. He had fought for a good amount of time, not doing too badly for his first real battle, but he had made his mistake when he had stopped moving for a second. He still had a plan, but it was very desperate. It probably wouldn’t work... it wouldn’t work... wait, was that voice telling him that it wouldn’t work not his own? Did it matter?
Something flared within him. A scream. “What is this one?” something yelled, and Youken felt as if he was being pulled apart from the inside. In horror, he saw the creature standing over him raise his sai “It won’t do! Not while it still breathes and thinks!” he heard himself scream, and then the knife descended towards him, and simultaneously, a beetle, the one thing within him that had been infected by the cell, was crushed by the other beetles within him for the greater good. It’s material recycled automatically. Similar to antibodies removing a virus from a body, Youken’s avatars had reflexively fought back against the invasive entity.
A lot of good it was about to do him now... the knife descended, and with his leg still trapped under the body of the one he had attacked with his claws, there was very little he could do to avoid it except perhaps... his tail snaked up and wrapped around a finger on the man’s hand, the force of the two colliding weak body parts bent both back, but the tail was built for such treatment, the finger was not. The damn thing dropped its knife, and Youken groped for it. He was quicker than the other one, but he knew that there was yet another as well. He hacked backwards towards where he instinctively knew it would be, burying its blade in the attacker’s neck even as it reached for him. The one on top of him seemed to be dead, and the one he had just stabbed fell and was definitely out of action, but the third one was still in action, and Youken was rapidly running out of ideas. This definitely wasn't going well. For that matter... Where was the witcher in all this? Hmm, he couldn't really rely on the man of two swords to help him. He needed a plan... and quickly. Think youken think he told himself as the last one advanced cautiously. It had seen what the small creature could do to the unwary, but also that it was harmless to the wary.
His job here wasn’t to cut down this horde, rather to keep them off of the back of the witcher. “Grains of sand” he muttered and then glanced at the dust in his hand. All of this had taken place in the second that the ambling half alive creature had been stumbling back to his horde. He’d never make it all the way if Youken’s plan worked. That enemy’s back was turned, and that made him an easier target. He tossed his coin as high as he could, hoping to take the gaze of a few of his opponents with it. His tail whipped through the air, and his plain dagger was slid up the length of it before it was released at just a tiny distance past the perfect point. Not a perfect toss, but good none the less.
Youken didn’t bother to see whether his dagger had hit the target. Instead he instantly retreated behind the witcher, ducking around him, moving as if he was simply an obstacle that needed to be avoided in his retreat. That was, he’d been told, the best way to move past an ally without hindering them. He dropped some of the dust as he moved, but that was unimportant really. The trick here would be not to engage the masses, but to retreat and only engage in single combats. He was a changeling, and thus his only real weapon here was his mind and his instincts. His body just wouldn’t keep up with the fight if he trusted it. That was just the way that his anatomy worked. He placed the witcher squarely between himself and the horde with a leap to his left, and then turned back to face them. The witcher knew what he was doing, but he could also act as Youken’s distraction. By staying back, he knew that he wouldn’t have to fight directly. Cowardly, but the best tactic for staying alive here. If he was right, they wouldn’t have the reflex to get past the witcher so long as Youken stayed light on his feet.
Sai in hand, Youken glanced around for a target. He had already moved a butcher’s knife to his tail. Then he made a mistake on his footwork in staying in sync with the witcher (although what he was calling footwork was more a complex series of calculations about the flow of the battle, and making sure that he was in the right place to not get caught out in the open, and found himself just a little more exposed than he meant to be. He’d anticipated that though. If these creatures felt pain, then a handful of dust thrown into their exposed innards would at least slow them. He was glad that they didn’t seem to have any real artillery, or he’d be in trouble by now. This whole plan worked on the thought that if they couldn’t get past the witcher, then he could weave in and out of the frey at will.
Strange... the creature didn’t seem to be that phased by the handful of dust. That didn’t bode well... Youken ducked out of the way of a swing from a... was that a sword? Well that explained what became of the adventurers. His tail flickered upwards towards the man’s throat with a butcher’s knife, but simultaneously, he struck with his sai bearing right hand towards the chest area of his assailant. Blocking two attacks simultaneously is never easy, and the infected man found himself falling backwards towards the ranks of his allies, pushing them back as they attempted to move around him to get to that hyperactive squirrel of a changeling. That was all Youken needed. He stamped his right foot down, leaned forwards as if to press his advantage, and then leapt suddenly backwards, moving back behind the witcher, and darting out the other side to slip his sai between the shoulder blades of one that the witcher was dealing with. He then spun to the right again, moving back out of the range of the thickest fighting. That last one had been too close. He really couldn’t afford to get locked in combat. He glanced behind him. If they could lure the creatures into the tunnel that they had come from, then not so many of them would be able to converge on them at once. But then he would be reduced to useless as his current method of fighting relied on the space that he could move around in. No, not a good idea. Doing something like that would lock them in place, and both of them needed to move more than that. He shook his head and reassessed the battle. Not going too badly but...
Youken cursed as the blow to the back of his head pulled him out of his revelry. “Note to self, stay alert,” he thought as he staggered away from the source of the blow, his tail waving blindly in an attempt to keep his assailant at bay whilst he regained his senses. Another came at him from his right, and tried to do something, grabbing Youken, as the boy felt something move through his body. His restrainer had obviously not seen his fangs though. As he was grabbed, he grabbed back in even, and sunk his teeth into the thing’s neck, tearing as he did so. Both creatures staggered away from each other, and Youken’s connection... that connection that for a second had made him feel so glorious, a part of something larger than himself, was broken.
It felt more weird losing the sensation than gaining it. Indeed, Youken just stood there dummstruck for half a second, not that it would have made much of a difference if he hadn’t. He had already been stood still, grappling with the infected creature for longer than he should have. The fight had moved and he had been pinned down, unable to move with it. Now, he found himself caught out in the open, the creatures claiming to be “cells of the original” were now surrounding him. Two of them, plus the one that was currently getting back up from where Youken had bitten him. That made three in total. Slowly, he retreated, moving back one step for every one of theirs. Every time one got a bit confident and stepped ahead of the others, Youken struck with a thrown butcher’s knife, keeping himself just out of arms length, and them just advancing slowly. Two of them had butcher’s knives protruding from them, but he only had one left, and his sai. He wouldn’t be able to... his back came up against something hard, and Youken swore as he saw grins appear on the faces of his three opponents. There was no way at this rate that he could climb the surface before they got there. Youken braced himself and prepared to go wild, desperately hoping that he could do something to stop them, but inwardly knew that he wasn’t a fighting creature. They were slow, but there were three of them, and Youken was thoroughly cornered. A coin danced around the fingers of his left hand as he tried desperately to form a plan. “Err... can we negotiate?” he smiled thinly as the creatures slowly closed the gap between himself and them.
He glanced down at his coin.
“You know that if you-” he began, trying to give himself some time to think. Maybe if... “-continue to fight-” he tossed his last butcher’s knife towards a creature locked in combat with the witcher. With the same motion, he spun to his left, right arm flashing out in a wide arc towards the thing on his left. The swing was undisciplined as ever, but it was sudden enough, that it had the desired effect. Since it came mid sentence, the creature wasn’t really ready for it, and so found itself moving away from the blow rather than exploiting how poorly executed it was. That was all that Youken needed. He redoubled his attack, swinging his tail overhead, just after he had flicked his coin into the creature’s face. That would distract it enough for it not to take advantage of his poor attack again. He then spun to the right, throwing his tail towards the face of the thing on his left. Taken by surpirise by two attacks, and then again by a third as the changeling turned away and somehow launched another attack with a tail, the man took a very weak blow to the head. Youken’s tail didn’t have any power, but the blow had kept him away from the boy for another half second. He had created himself some room, but the other two were rapidly closing in again. He lurched towards the man directly ahead of him, throwing himself away from the wall as the one on his right tried to catch up, and the one on his left was simply pushed away from himself. That one met his blow with an even counter, a blow directly to the boy’s gut which pushed the wind out of him.
Youken really hadn’t been expecting that. His dagger had formed a large gash across the creature’s chest, but his opponent had acted without any regard for its own safety, and that had caught Youken off guard. He could barely fall over to avoid the blow of the next opponent, cursing fluently in abyssal as he did so. From the floor, he knew that it was pretty much all over. He was a changeling, not really built for direct combat. This was not his best scenario. Desparately, he looped his tail around the leg of one of his opponents, and pulled with his hands at another, hoping that the distraction of them falling over would give him a little more room to move and think, but it was a vain hope. He didn’t really have the strength even to pull one over, let alone two.
As the third one leaned in towards, him, he changed tactic again, bearing his fangs and biting down hard on an ankle. It was a fate that he had almost been subjected to himself, but he had avoided it by changing the size of his ankles when that drunken fairy had closed its jaws. He knew for a fact that there were ligaments and arteries around that area key to the functioning of the human leg. It was the Achilles tendon he aimed for, and the fact that the thing fell instantly on top of him told him that he had hit his target. He grunted as the body hit him, but instead of shifting it off, rolled sideways, manipulating the body between himself and one of the two attackers, with his claws he tore into the fallen thing.
He wasn’t just cutting, he was gripping and pulling, maximising the damage of each blow. Somewhere, he had lost his sai, but he didn’t really care. His danger sense was going wild... of course it was, yet he was still somehow fighting. The thing that he was ripping apart hardly stood a chance. It was its companions that worried him. One was the other side of the body, its blows falling uselessly against the fallen body of its ally, (or was it the fallen body of itself? These things were sort of the same thing... it wasn’t important), but the other-
Suddenly Youken was pinned down, and he felt his will slipping away again. Desperately, he kicked out backwards, but the damn thing was a lot stronger than he was. He had fought for a good amount of time, not doing too badly for his first real battle, but he had made his mistake when he had stopped moving for a second. He still had a plan, but it was very desperate. It probably wouldn’t work... it wouldn’t work... wait, was that voice telling him that it wouldn’t work not his own? Did it matter?
Something flared within him. A scream. “What is this one?” something yelled, and Youken felt as if he was being pulled apart from the inside. In horror, he saw the creature standing over him raise his sai “It won’t do! Not while it still breathes and thinks!” he heard himself scream, and then the knife descended towards him, and simultaneously, a beetle, the one thing within him that had been infected by the cell, was crushed by the other beetles within him for the greater good. It’s material recycled automatically. Similar to antibodies removing a virus from a body, Youken’s avatars had reflexively fought back against the invasive entity.
A lot of good it was about to do him now... the knife descended, and with his leg still trapped under the body of the one he had attacked with his claws, there was very little he could do to avoid it except perhaps... his tail snaked up and wrapped around a finger on the man’s hand, the force of the two colliding weak body parts bent both back, but the tail was built for such treatment, the finger was not. The damn thing dropped its knife, and Youken groped for it. He was quicker than the other one, but he knew that there was yet another as well. He hacked backwards towards where he instinctively knew it would be, burying its blade in the attacker’s neck even as it reached for him. The one on top of him seemed to be dead, and the one he had just stabbed fell and was definitely out of action, but the third one was still in action, and Youken was rapidly running out of ideas. This definitely wasn't going well. For that matter... Where was the witcher in all this? Hmm, he couldn't really rely on the man of two swords to help him. He needed a plan... and quickly. Think youken think he told himself as the last one advanced cautiously. It had seen what the small creature could do to the unwary, but also that it was harmless to the wary.
-
Silence
Re: [CRP] The Dead, should stay Dead
Cells of the original eh?
It had been a few months since the witcher and he had gone around killing... no, it wasn't really killing when they weren't really alive... getting rid of the creatures that had claimed to be that. A few months since he had almost ended up one of them. A few months since he had lit a fire in the tomb to make sure the job was finished... a few months since they had obviously missed one of them. There was no other explanation for why there was still one walking around. The witcher had told him to do nothing but keep an eye on it so long as it was not killing. Youken didn't like the feeling of not doing things about it... yes there was a war on and he should have been devoting his time to training, but something about that cell thing was really giving him a bad feeling. The word cell would be a good enough place to start. If need be he could dig up some information about previous creatures with similar things to this one... next time they met, he would hopefully at least know something about it. That was the problem with trying to do anything about that creature, he knew absolutely nothing about it.
It didn't take the boy long to find the name Nova. All he had to do was mention the sort of thing he was looking for to a man on the street and he was able to tell him that much, that there was an entity called Nova that went around doing the same sorts of things as these cells did. That much was no secret. Beyond that though, things became difficult. There was something about imperious, something about stages and... nothing. It was like anything past that had been destroyed. If not for Teide in the tavern, he would have never found anything worth finding, and really, she had barely given him anything. Still, she had given him enough. Firstly, she had given him the name Novajen. Secondly, she had confirmed that what he had was correct, than this creature was a parasite, (whatever that meant), that took hosts and controlled them, and that the third stage of control was never reached. The Nova was destroyed before that. More importantly though, she told him that if he wanted answers “To look under the wings of the sun.” and then said something about ashes. He had assumed that the cell was fearful of fire because he had burnt down the tavern, but maybe the original too had died in fire. It was enough to get him started. Enough to give him a direction to go in. She had said that she didn't want him to know, but she had given him more than enough to get by on for now...
Wings of the sun... or was it the sun's rays... damn, if he couldn't even remember the clue, what hope did he have of finding the answer? Alder swore under his breath as he stared at yet another incomprehensible squiggle on the page of a book which was apparently about an outbreak of insanity that had happened around the area of Imperious... before the town was founded. It was a long shot, but it was possible that it had something to do with the Nova. Still, the accounts didn't match what he knew of the Nova. Looked like this was yet another dead end. Imperious would hold more information, but he could hardly just stand up and walk there with the war on. That meant that he would have to help finish the war himself if he wanted to get to the bottom of this. Ah well, he had already joined the army for his own reasons, this just meant that he would have to work a bit harder to get Widu ready. Slowly, he set aside his book and picked up his copy of "how to win friends"
"Master this book... read up on honing the mind... get better at carpentering... get the army some better equipment... finish or get around this damn war... move to Imperious, join the VanderWoods... then I'll pick this up again. Oh, and I've gotta give the old guy a hand at some point... Don't owe him any more, but ah... it's kinda useful having him around. Don't want him to go getting himself killed."
Yep, he had a long way to go, but for some reason, he didn't care. Compared to the years he had spent doing nothing but scavenging and living, it was actually an incredible feeling, having something to do, to work towards.
It had been a few months since the witcher and he had gone around killing... no, it wasn't really killing when they weren't really alive... getting rid of the creatures that had claimed to be that. A few months since he had almost ended up one of them. A few months since he had lit a fire in the tomb to make sure the job was finished... a few months since they had obviously missed one of them. There was no other explanation for why there was still one walking around. The witcher had told him to do nothing but keep an eye on it so long as it was not killing. Youken didn't like the feeling of not doing things about it... yes there was a war on and he should have been devoting his time to training, but something about that cell thing was really giving him a bad feeling. The word cell would be a good enough place to start. If need be he could dig up some information about previous creatures with similar things to this one... next time they met, he would hopefully at least know something about it. That was the problem with trying to do anything about that creature, he knew absolutely nothing about it.
It didn't take the boy long to find the name Nova. All he had to do was mention the sort of thing he was looking for to a man on the street and he was able to tell him that much, that there was an entity called Nova that went around doing the same sorts of things as these cells did. That much was no secret. Beyond that though, things became difficult. There was something about imperious, something about stages and... nothing. It was like anything past that had been destroyed. If not for Teide in the tavern, he would have never found anything worth finding, and really, she had barely given him anything. Still, she had given him enough. Firstly, she had given him the name Novajen. Secondly, she had confirmed that what he had was correct, than this creature was a parasite, (whatever that meant), that took hosts and controlled them, and that the third stage of control was never reached. The Nova was destroyed before that. More importantly though, she told him that if he wanted answers “To look under the wings of the sun.” and then said something about ashes. He had assumed that the cell was fearful of fire because he had burnt down the tavern, but maybe the original too had died in fire. It was enough to get him started. Enough to give him a direction to go in. She had said that she didn't want him to know, but she had given him more than enough to get by on for now...
Wings of the sun... or was it the sun's rays... damn, if he couldn't even remember the clue, what hope did he have of finding the answer? Alder swore under his breath as he stared at yet another incomprehensible squiggle on the page of a book which was apparently about an outbreak of insanity that had happened around the area of Imperious... before the town was founded. It was a long shot, but it was possible that it had something to do with the Nova. Still, the accounts didn't match what he knew of the Nova. Looked like this was yet another dead end. Imperious would hold more information, but he could hardly just stand up and walk there with the war on. That meant that he would have to help finish the war himself if he wanted to get to the bottom of this. Ah well, he had already joined the army for his own reasons, this just meant that he would have to work a bit harder to get Widu ready. Slowly, he set aside his book and picked up his copy of "how to win friends"
"Master this book... read up on honing the mind... get better at carpentering... get the army some better equipment... finish or get around this damn war... move to Imperious, join the VanderWoods... then I'll pick this up again. Oh, and I've gotta give the old guy a hand at some point... Don't owe him any more, but ah... it's kinda useful having him around. Don't want him to go getting himself killed."
Yep, he had a long way to go, but for some reason, he didn't care. Compared to the years he had spent doing nothing but scavenging and living, it was actually an incredible feeling, having something to do, to work towards.