To the Southern Continent

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Say... You don't suppose your village might be blaming humans for this same sort of thing, might you?"

"Dont... know." Tamina had composed herself a little now they'd gotten away from the medical centre and were approaching the edge of the town. "Woman's wounds looked like a galdy got her." She briefly explained what those creatures were [OOC I'm actually not sure what they look like atm, 'big cats' is as far as I've gotten./OOC], highlighting the fact that they were not local to the area or poisonous.

"You have any animals like that where you come from?" She asked.

OOC Welcome back Sareth. Hey Swift, you still wanting to jump in?/OOC
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Sareth
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Sareth »

"Well, we have cats. And we have poisonous snakes. But nothing that kind of combines the two." Jamie shook her head. "Of course, solving this one will be too easy. We just find it, and shoot it!" She patted her hip happily. "What could be simpler?"
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: To the Southern Continent

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Tamina tried to force a smile, it sat there, looking strained.

"Y-yeah. Shouldn't be problem." She looked down at the weapons she carried, which were currently nothing but the claws at the ends of her fingers and toes. She tried a touch of optimism. "Maybe the Killikah'll take us hunting. Get some bows. Get a trophy."

As they cleared the final cabins the jungle came fully into view. It certainly looked harmless enough, a leafy green canvas with the faint background noise of chirruping insects and calls of exotic sounding birds. The kobold felt a little happier despite her fears, she'd really missed this place.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide in sudden recollection. "The gah... uh... 'bay-bee'... you wanna leave with your mom?"

OOC Was going to take a jump forward about half an hour in the next post unless anyone has something they want to do in town or join up with Tamina and Jamie before then, that ok with everyone? Gabriel'll be coming back into it soon if people need someone else to buddy up with./OOC
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Sareth
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Sareth »

"I'd love to leave Nera behind with mom," Jamie replied. "The only problem with that is it means letting mom catch up with us, and there is no way in hell I could escape from her twice in one day." She sighed. "Let's go before she manages to catch up on her own."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"K, k." Tamina stuck out a furry hand at the baby, which made cooing noises and stroked at the fur. "Jus' be careful... don't wanna see the gah get hurt, or you."

The path, as it quickly became apparent to Jamie, was a well-used one. Although the Grendell denizens and Tamina's tribe weren't bustling communities laden with trade wagons, or the type to hack the foilege to shreds and brick a road through the jungle, there was a well-defined path trampled treadbare in the undergrowth easily wide enough for three people to walk abreast. The sounds of wildlife was much louder in the enclosure of the trees, punctuated now by the roars of bigger sounding beasts from time to time. One call in particular, was a shrieking rasp that sounded nightmarishly terrifying, Tamina chuckled at the alarm that touched her companions eyes.

"Jus' a Heekah. Big voice, little monkey thing. Scares hunters away."

Soon Grendell dropped from sight altogether.

...................

Half an hour later the warmth of the jungle had begun to set in on the trekkers. The kobold's tail swished back and forth continually to get away the insects that flittered around them. The pair were far from exhausted, but their breathing had taken on the slow, deep qualities of people jogging. Yet, the air was fresher than at the Port somehow; it had a purity to it uncontaminated by the press of a hundred thousand human bodies.

After their entrance into the leafy company the duo had retreated into the clouds of their own thoughts. Tamina looked troubled, the initial elation of being back in her hunting grounds had worn off and now she found herself battling the constant worry of what had happened to her tribe. She ran over all the unanswered questions in her mind; why had there been none of her people in Grendell? If there were dangerous animals near their village, why hadn't they been disposed of? Her kind were prolific hunters after all, and had faced monstrosities in the past, both natural and unnatural. Had they become victims? Or, was the delirious woman right, and they were all to blame?

The kobold was so caught up in her uncertainty it took her longer than normal to notice the strangeness.

Silence.

She replayed the last several minutes in her head, when had the background noise stopped? The last minute or so? She locked eyes with Jamie who looked as full of trepidation as she was.

"Is it meant to be this quiet?"

Tamina shook her head. "It's never this quiet."

The village wasn't far away now, another twenty minutes and they'd arrive.

OOC Feel free to nab Tamina for lines and actions if you need to./OOC
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Sareth
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Sareth »

Cautiously, Jamie tugged a pistol out of her clothes, fingering but not cocking the hammer. "That's never a good sign. What do you think it means?"
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

OOC Let the games begin./OOC

"Something's scaring them." The humanoid's yellow eyes roamed relentlessly, but there was nothing to pick out in the undergrowth. The pair moved cautiously, the silence followed them all the way to their destination.

The first dwellings of the kobold village loomed into view. The travellers could make out gangplanks and bridges scattered about the canopy, leading to huts built on overlarge criss-crossing branches some fifty feet above the ground. As they entered the clearing the village was fully presented.

The ground floor featured numerous dwellings arranged into circles with campfires at their centres. As the pair looked around they saw hides mounted on frames and left to dry in the sun, there were scattered racks, empty of anything but hooks to hang the day’s hunting on, pots and spears lay sporadically around them. They saw stairways leading to the upper levels winding around the trunks at the far edge of the community.

The one thing they couldn’t see was any sign of the community itself.

Tamina looked around near-frantically, a keening noise rising from the back of her throat.

“Where’s everyone?” She whispered, the silence seemed to grow oppressive, like a physical weight. It warned the kobold against shouting to fill it up. With knots in their stomachs they pressed forwards.

A few more minutes of checking the ground level huts revealed nothing. The rooms were empty, but furnished as if the owners were due back at any moment.

The pair stepped out of the sixth or seventh home into the sunshine when a shadow fell across them.

There was no time for consultation, Jamie and Tamina leapt backwards instinctively as the black spot grew rapidly wider, an instant later a pot smashed on the ground.

Tamina let out a yelp before she could stop herself. She clamped a hand across her mouth as if she could take it back. It did no good.

A cry sounded above them. An animal noise of feral anger edged with something that could’ve been pain. With horror-struck slowness the kobold looked upwards to the gangplank the object had fallen from.

A hammering rhythm was suddenly drummed into the walkways as something big began scurrying to the jungle floor.

“What is that?”

Tamina didn’t answer, maybe couldn’t. Her sight picked out the flash of something humanoid and covered in shaggy fur disappearing round the trunk. A moment later it appeared.

Suddenly it became clear to both woman what the patient in the Grendell doctor’s had been raving about. As it cleared the last few steps and came fully into eyeshot Tamina bit back a scream.

The thing standing in front of them looked like a kobold.

It was roughly the same size and shape as Tamina, but it was monstrous parody of Jamie’s companion. The patches of fur on its body were bigger and longer, its limbs were thicker and ended in claws that looked disproportionately large on its frame. The face was the worst part, it was twisted, warped, centred with a pair of eyes that contained nothing but blackness and an overfull mouth of serrated teeth. It stared at the newcomers with the focus of a predator and let out a roar.

From a dozen points of the compass the call was answered. They were surrounded.
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Sareth
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Sareth »

Carefully slinging Nera, Jamie looked at the creature in front of them and drew a second pistol. One could almost hear her mentally counting the shrieks and howls as she cocked both pistols.

"I take it this is not normal, then?" she asked wryly.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the monster. The creature in front actually dropped to all fours for a moment like a jungle cat, trails of saliva leaking through the gaps in its teeth. It narrowed its eyes, roared a second time and charged straight at them.

..............................

At that particular moment another ship was anchoring in Grendell. Gabriel Averis stood on it's deck with a faint smile across his face.

"Payday." He murmured, and began walking down the gangplank.
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Sareth
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Re: To the Southern Continent

Post by Sareth »

A shot rang out, taking the creature between the eyes. It flopped to the ground in a pile of fur and tangled limbs.

Jamie looked about carefully. "Nice not to waste ammunition. But I'm not sure I'll have enough. It sounds like there's more of them than bullets in these things. Thoughts?"
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