EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Okay, I think I'll have Ahnasha return in my next one as well.

The Aesteria Chronicles

Ignis kept up his onslaught until he saw the ice spirit starting to retaliate. Using a gust of warm air to overturn the closest table, Ignis dashed behind it as the flurry of icy needles were launched towards him. A few of the needles pierced through him, rather painfully, but most he avoided. The attack did not take too much of his energy, so he jumped out from behind his table with a fireball in hand.

"I've got a nice, warm...hey, where'd it go?" Ignis began, rapidly searching around the room until he realized the ice spirit had disappeared. Looking around, he could not see too much through the steam someone had released into the air, but he did not hear any fighting, and he could feel the body heat of those close to him well enough to get a sense of where they were. It seemed the fight was over. "Oh...well yeah, you better run. I'll melt you."

Ignis extinguished his flames, bringing himself back to his normal, translucent self. It took some searching to find out which blob of body heat was Helen, but eventually, he got close enough to see her finishing up dealing with the boy's wound. Ignis was pretty confident the boy was going to live from the way the situation looked. Helen, and even Ignis himself, had dealt with quite a lot of bullet wounds during Helen's time in the military, so it was a procedure she had a lot of experience with. For most gunshot victims, if they managed to make it to a doctor, they were probably going to live. Whether or not they stayed in one piece was a different story. There was no such thing as a minor bullet wound, and even if it didn't require an amputation, gunshots could have a permanent and painful influence. If the boy was lucky, he could avoid that.

"Eh, I've been hurt worse. I'll spend the night in a forge, or maybe the ship's boiler room. I've been needing a good bath anyway." Ignis answered lightheartedly. He did not know if anyone other than the boy and the Walkins' had been seriously hurt, but unless Helen or Adonai were injured, it did not really matter to him. He did have some concern for the boy, though that was mostly because Helen was concerned for him. He knew how she would feel if the boy ended up with some kind of permanent injury, so Ignis decided to lend his own form of help.

"I think I'll take a look inside your patient, see if there's anything I can see." Ignis informed Helen, not actually waiting for a response before going ahead with his plan. As courtesy, however, he did at least jump into the boy's body while his back was turned, so he did not actually see Ignis merge with his own body heat. "Hmm, yes, he was definitely shot. I'll look around for a bit and tell you if I see anything you should worry about"

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

"I understand." Tarentek said just before Raldel began to speak to Onyx. The isolationist attitude of their people seemed to extend beyond just this tribe, though he was right that Tarentek would be busy in Tel Nof. They could not afford to wait on any front, as they needed as many allies as they could muster. Tarentek hoped that Raldel's mate and daughter were as good of negotiators as he was suggesting...and that they were still alive. If they were not warriors, then there could be a better chance that they survived if the eastern tribe had been attacked. Their enemy was not destroying cities, but annexing them, which meant that the city was kept in as good of a state as possible with civilians spared.

Tarentek largely ignored the looks from Opal. He did not expect to easily gain his, or anyone else's trust, so he kept his focus on the matter at hand. After Onyx mentioned seeing a group of enemy scouts, Tarentek spoke up. "That makes sense; our enemy is expanding quickly, but there are limits to their mobility. They still have to learn about the land, find the locations of settlements, and plot their next move. They have a large army they must move, house, and feed, so they cannot simply move on immediately. Hopefully, that gives us time to mount our defense and learn about the Empire. In the meantime, the roads may become more dangerous to travel." He commented, pausing a moment as a thought entered his mind. "Well, they might. There is still quite a lot we do not know about our enemy, but the fact that they annexed Amman seems to suggest they want to expand their Empire. However, that does not mean they will attack everyone on sight. Warriors perhaps, but their target seems to be cities and other settlements they could use to expand their power, not necessarily common travelers. In fact, it may not be so difficult to scout the cities they control. If the cities they conquer are joining their Empire, then they would not keep them locked down forever. They still need to keep trade flowing in order to keep their economy strong. Scouting their cities, especially those they have held for a while, may be as simple as walking through the front gate. Perhaps disguised as merchants? We would need more information before attempting it, of course, but it is a possibility."

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy

From the way it looked, the man seemed to be taking the strategy of complementing his mercenaries to sell his job. She wondered if he was exaggerating in any of his descriptions of the others, though her own description seemed pretty accurate. She had based her career off of exploiting her own strengths to her advantage. Given that there were very few, if any, other Ssi-ruu in the galaxy outside the Imperium, she was probably the only Ssi-ruu mercenary they knew of, and maybe the only one at all. She did not even pretend that her uniqueness was not the reason for her success. Sure, she had skill built up over almost a decade of experience, but there were far more experienced mercenaries out there. She carved out her place in the galaxy by tailoring her skills to her own natural attributes, making her far deadlier than she could have been otherwise.

Personally, all Sirka needed was to hear her pay to accept the job, as long as it was not an absolute suicide mission. The only reason they would hire her is to make her fight someone, and she was not at all concerned with who the enemy might be. Military, criminals, civilians, anything was fair game as long as the credits were fair. Of course, even if it did not influence her decision to accept the job, she was still curious about what they might be doing. "Look, as long as history pays like you say, you've got my muscle for this. Though, it'd be nice to know exactly what I'll be shooting."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I think now would be a good time to skip later in the day (unless you have something else planned, of course). I don't really know when you wanted to skip to, though, so you may have to do it. If you were going to include summaries of everyone else's days, don't feel pressured to include them all in the same post. That would probably be a lot of writing.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Once more, Meesei observed Sabine's attempts at calming her remaining pain. Meesei, with her years of practice, could identify and match the patterns of magicka in Sabine's body almost immediately, so she could easily compare Sabine's attempts to the actual patterns. At first, her recreations of the patterns were noticeably off, but the more she practiced, the closer she came to mimicing her body's magicka. It seemed like the lesson was progressing as well as Meesei had hoped. It would take Sabine a while to successfully numb her pain at first, but the more she practiced, the more quickly she would be able to match her body's patterns. Eventually, she would become too familiar with her own body, so she would need to practice on someone else in order to continue honing her skill, but for the moment, she could make progress by herself.

As Sabine grew closer to matching her created patterns to her natural ones, Rhazii finally started to act up significantly. Of course, he had a good reason, but it interrupted Sabine nonetheless. "You were indeed close, so it is best not to stop now." Meesei said as she stood to her feet. "I will take care of Rhazii. Keep practicing; the lesson is proceeding just as well as I had hoped. The more experience you have, the more quickly you will be able to match the energies of a person's body. Eventually, you will be able to do so for a person's overall patterns almost without effort."

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Tarentek nodded to Raldel. It would still be at least a few days before he would feel well enough to travel, but once he had recovered, he could take on the role of negotiator for Tel Nof. "Of course, Tel Nof is barely farther than Jerusalem, and they would be able to send forces quickly. It is the smallest of the three cities, but their technology is notably better. They regularly engage in trade with other cities, so as long as we are cordial, we should have no problem simply walking through the front gate. Getting an audience with their leadership may be more difficult, but if they are governed in any way similar to Amman, there should be a method to get a message to someone important."

As for Raldel's next suggestion about finding people to broker a truce between the other two cities, Tarentek was slightly more hesitant, but nevertheless quickly came to a decision. "As for finding these other negotiators you speak of...if there is going to be a mission to find them, I would volunteer for it. Ultimately, it is my idea to even attempt to broker a truce between the two cities, and I would not send your people into danger without being willing to risk my own life as well. Where are these people you are referring to, and what kind of danger to you expect such a task would entail?" He asked.

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy

Sirka stood with her arms crossed, though in more of a curious stance than an aggressive one. She found it odd how his entire demeanor seemed to shift in a second, but then again, if there was one topic that mandalorians just loved to discuss, it was mandalorians. Despite the pretenders on Nar Shaddaa, she had met her share of genuine mandalorians. It was easy to tell by their asking price which ones were real; no mandalorian would be working at a discount. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Follow the guidelines of the Supercommando Codex, abide by the Resol'nare, I know what it takes. Wear the armor, speak the language, defend yourself and family, contribute to the clan, heed Mand'alor's summons, and raise your children the same way. I know all that, but a mandalorian who can't fight isn't a mandalorian. Literally."

With her response, Sirka mostly wanted to show that she had been more interested in the mandalorians than just a passing thought, as she had done actual research into the idea. Of course, she had little knowledge of the specifics of mandalorian society beyond what she had already said, and she certainly didn't speak the language, apart from a few words she could recognize from her research. There had been a phase of her life where she was almost certain she wanted to join them. After living in a society that treated her worse than an animal simply for the caste she was hatched into, joining a group of warriors that cared not about birth or origin, but only merit was an enticing concept. She had pursued that research for a while, but ultimately abandoned the idea. She herself did not even like her own reasons for stopping her pursuit, and she would not admit them to anyone else. More likely, she would just use a more pragmatic excuse if asked, and if she had judged this mandalorian properly, he was definitely going to ask.

Ashes [EliteCommander and Vesuvius00]

Tarentek did not know enough about Onyx to know for sure if it was normal for her to suddenly leave in this manner. Though, given that she was wandering alone when she found him, it couldn't be too strange of behavior. Indeed, Raldel did not seem too greatly concerned, so he doubted it was anything terribly important. After Opal left, Tarentek turned back to Raldel to continue.

"Hopefully, your allies can mount a defense in time. Just be sure to warn them of the extent of our enemy's capabilities. I do not know if we could win direct, head on battles against them. Unless our enemy is far outnumbered, we would need clever tactics to give us the advantage. As for the three cities to the northwest, Amman engaged in trade with all of them. We weren't exactly allies, but it was rare for us to have any direct conflict, given our distance from them. Tel Nof is controlled by another group of my race, the Karisskan. We were civil with them, mostly. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are both controlled by different races; they do look somewhat like my people, but neither of them are Karisskan. From all I have heard, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have a complicated, and sometimes violent history with each other. Their people are almost opposites in how they behave, so I agree that it may be difficult to convince them to cooperate. It may not be impossible, but...they would need to believe the danger from this Empire is greater than their animosity for one another. Tel Nof is the smallest of the three cities, but there might actually be a good chance of convincing them to aid in the defense. If...I were to speak to them, the fact that I am Karisskan might give me more credibility." Tarentek explained.

Star Wars - Scum and Villainy

The Mandalorian's response produced a laugh from Sirka. It was somewhat of a hobby of hers to rile up some of the supposed "tough guys" she tended to meet, especially if she felt like having a good fight. A lot of them were more bark than bite, but there were some whose skills were actually somewhat close to their bravado. This one certainly had a lot of bravado, but given that he was being offered this very well paying job as well, she actually had to guess he was more towards the latter. At first, she had just thought he was two-cred merc with an overinflated opinion of himself, but learning that he was mandalorian gave her a bit more context to his words. The armor might have been an indicator for her, had she not seen so many imitation suits on Nar Shaddaa from thugs looking to capitalize on the Mandalorians' reputation. She supposed he could be lying, but again, the fact that he had been invited here suggested otherwise. A fight with him could be interesting; of course, as a teammate, she wouldn't want to do anything lethal, but sparring was fair game. That, or having a competition to see who could kill more hostiles.

It seemed that Dazan had his own input on the matter, though he seemed more genuinely offended than she did. During her time on Lwhekk, she recieved more verbal abuse than most people did in a lifetime, so insults had essentially lost all effectiveness on her. If she picked a fight, it was probably just for the fun of it. "Eh, I wouldn't be too hard on him. This one seems to be a mando to the core; he certainly has the arrogance of one. Still, he's got that Mandalorian honor going for him. I actually like that. Gives them a reason to fight when credits aren't enough. I've thought about joining before; I hear they'll accept anyone who can prove themselves." Sirka commented, shifting her gaze directly to the Mandalorian. "And if you don't think I could prove myself, well, talk is cheap. My actions will speak volumes."