Why not? I'll keep an eye on this. Maybe even join.
ERode Member
A Spiny Ant
- Last Seen: 1 hr ago
- Joined: 12 yrs ago
- Posts: 6745 (1.49 / day)
- VMs: 5
-
Username history
- ERode 12 yrs ago
-
Latest 10 profile visitors:
-
Most recent →
Yankee,
Altered Tundra,
Alisdragon911,
stone,
VitaVitaAR,
Animal,
LanaStorm,
Ohm,
Haha,
Shovel
Status
User has no status, yet
Bio
Most Recent Posts
Aaaand pasted.
Otis out here doing his best to give everyone a role...mostly because he wants Ciara to reserve her strength for the beeg duel.
Otis out here doing his best to give everyone a role...mostly because he wants Ciara to reserve her strength for the beeg duel.
Two activations, and then something of an involved risk.
Understood, was Otis’s response to Hildegunde. Hold off on that.
The situation was evolving, the combination of Ciara and Iraleth’s attacks enough to keep the instructor occupied and unable to disentangle himself from either of them in the same way that he had done to Rio. Despite the chaos of the melee now, the Strigidae could spy the fluctuations in his Personal Barrier. As expected of Iraleth. Even when facing the full weight of a primal leyline, her Ethos had enough raw power to affect the integrity of the barrier that Alto possessed.
Within the melee then, what was their next move? Rio possessed four shields with differing capabilities, Chloe possessed a one-touch-kill. Chunji wasn’t participating, Davil was a non-factor, and Hildegunde had one more activation of her persisting bullet. Their options were…
A dome of thorns ensconced itself around the three combatants, preventing interference.
…quite straightforward now. It just had to be fast.
“Despair in struggle,, embrace her to Return? Living the for but.
Prepared are coffins our, lungs our leaves last the when
Earth and air of beings remain we, scattered or buried whether.
Cremating and embalming, pyres and temples.“
He clasped his hands together as the arcane incantation gradually made its way through his lips, binding them together tightly. From such motions, the essence of ‘embracing’ and ‘binding’ was realized, and the earth around the dome rose up to form two self-same walls that clapped together. Damp soil, solidifying under the effects of Otis’s spell, formed a second layer, a denser layer over the dome of thorns.
Shutting off all sources of sunlight.
Creating a void within this essence-less space, a deep darkness that was only driven away by the inherent radiance of the Inheritor.
Iraleth, deactivate your Ethos and disengage best you can. If not, then just fortify your Personal Barrier. Ciara, strike with intent, but leaving the top of the dome unguarded by your shadows. Rio, I know one of your shields has a repulsing effect. Coordinate with Chloe. Alto’s best bet would be to break out by ascending upwards; launch Chloe at him in that moment and ONLY in that moment. I’ll trust that you weren’t lying about the power of your finger, Miss Steeler. Hildegunde, I’ll leave you to handle any unpleasant tricks Instructor Alto may use to enable alternative escapes. As a primal mage, you have a better understanding than I do of the possibilities.
It would be a flurry of actions, soon enough.
And now that Otis had taken direct action, he suspected that he’d be earning some unwanted attention too.
>decides to create an opaque dome, blocking off line of sight and sunlight.
Otis: "lmao he doesn't know"
Otis: "lmao he doesn't know"
So, that dome of Alto's. How tightly-knit together is it? Can the people outside still see through it, or is it entirely impermeable?
//Day 2 | Location: Nameless Forest - Lakeside
@Vertigo@baraquiel
“They can’t stay scared all the time,” Mayumi replied, leaning back on the log and planting her hands upon the grass. “Can’t stay sad that long either.”
It wasn’t something that could be sustained. Not if you wanted to keep going. Perhaps it was heartless, to move on so quickly after Yuudai and Yuki passed, but if Duncan and Daisuke had been willing to do it, everyone else had simply followed through.
She squinted through the smoke, into the distance, at where Tsubaki and Yukiko were. There was still a space for those who couldn’t follow through. Even with only one hand, even with her own bundle of troubles, the dark-skinned girl still managed to make herself into a sanctuary for others, huh?
“Being safe for a couple days doesn’t mean too much, but yeah, let the idiots be idiots while they can.” Uncharacteristically, she slapped Asahi on the shoulder. It was weak slap, as expected of an indoorsy type like her. Hardly inspiring. But she made an effort to flash her teeth. “You should try it out too. Least ‘til you get back to being your usual cutesy self, Asahi.”
Perhaps she caught the worry in his eyes, perhaps she didn’t.
“I’m sure Sasuke only jumped in to join you.”
That was more of a lie, but the lopsided quirking of her lips made it a joke.
...
The forest was noisy as hell once you really stopped to listen, but humans were noisy as hell even when you didn’t stop to listen.
Duncan was a strong, after all. Superhumanly strong, even. If he put his mind to it, he could topple a tree by kicking it. He could jump insane distances too. Could probably survive a bullet to the face at this point. He was akin to a superhero, a demigod in the Otherside, spilling golden blood that was so potent that it was anathema to mere mortals.
All this did not translate to stealth. Not at all.
He was peculiarly big, after all, and heavy too. He couldn’t move on all fours and slink about like a true beast, and there were just so many things on the ground! Twigs could snap beneath his weight, or his hips could graze the brush. Even the gentle crinkling of fallen leaves beneath him felt too loud, and Duncan took so much effort in slowing down and approaching visual range that he…failed to read the situation.
Haruko and Akito were alone, as alone as they could be. It was by choice, of course, for a conversation that demanded privacy. But it meant too, that vigilance was necessary too. This was a world of monsters, and they stepped into the wilderness. The unnatural shuddering of vegetation, the sensation of something massive approaching them with a predator’s gait. They were not insensitive to it, and while Akito still played at a lone wolf, Haruko was different.
She, after all, had a super strong boyfriend. Perhaps, if rumors were to be believed, currently the world's strongest boyfriend.
And thus, her response to lurking danger?
“DUNCAN! HELP!”
It was simple irony, of course, that the presence the two sensed was Duncan.
//Day 2 | Location: Nameless Forest - The Den
@AThousandCurses@Nakushita
It was sunset in her eyes, and the only blue came from her classmate.
The monsters were dead. Shun had given her body for it, and even as she forced more food into her mouth, even as Oros came to feed her, her ruptured organs refused to hold it down for long. The air, once sweet with victory and sated thrill, was soon stained with the sour of vomit and the rust of blood instead, the crippled girl forced to roll over and hurl out the contents of her stomach. The forge inside the pit of her stomach was broken, whatever fuel placed inside, whatever fire fanned by the bellows, spilling out instead of staying in.
The cold settled in. The cost had been paid, but the debts had not. And her body was still not fixing itself fast enough. She needed to recover. Recover so she could eat. But she couldn’t recover without energy. And energy could only be gotten from eating. Eating which she couldn’t do. She had to recover still.
It was a small thought. A flicker of a thought.
But that golden blood may have been most appropriate for a moment like this. An elixir to be taken when all else had been emptied. The drop of fuel to restart the engine.
Oros watched as Shun weakened in the daylight.
It was up in the air, truly. She could run back. Believe in fate and search for a helping hand, but did her one friend have that long to live? Was there even anything she could truly do to help, when her own Facsimile was unformed, when all those mountains of meat couldn’t even be chewed by Shun, couldn’t be kept down even if they were chewed?
There was sunset in Shun’s eyes. The dying of the light.
Without the boons of being an Awakened, it was only through human tenacity that Shun could cling on. And yet…
She had avenged Yuudai. Had enjoyed that splash of freedom. Had accepted the consequence of fighting where she ought to have run.
What reason remained for her to continue living?
“I figured I’d err on the side of caution,” the Witch Hunter replied.
Because it did matter in the heart of things. Monsters preyed on human suffering. Humans, while they could prey on human suffering, didn’t necessarily need to in order to survive. Redemption was possible, whether it too years or not. And revenge wasn’t hers to take either. Someone else would probably be better saved, doing that. For her, however?
The man was neither monster nor witch, and his ally was more cat than tiger.
The beast’s initial charge sent her flying away, Estelle having leapt backwards at the moment of impact to minimize damage taken. It had given her the time necessary to see the twinned weapons her opponent wielded. Sickles, razor-sharp and whistling in the wind, rushed towards her in the facsimile of a tiger’s claws, and she met them with the scabbard of her Dai-Katana, holy mantras upon her lips. Loki could see the spell being woven, sigils aligning overtop the back of her hand, and yet, his frenzied rush failed to break her defense.
Now!
A half-step to the side, and the heft of her Instrument! A sacred shimmering resonated from the scabbard of the divine sword, parrying the weretiger’s strike and then reflecting it. His arm swung back, leaving himself exposed, and the Witch Hunter’s melody completed. Brilliance bloomed, a talisman constructed by divine will, aimed at…Spades, whose form was no longer obstructed by a sickle-wielding weretiger.
The beam shot forth, aimed at the gunman’s torso.
And, following through with her own parry, Estelle thrust the sheathed end of her Instrument into Loki’s chest, in order to knock him off the second floor railings that he had ended back-to-back with.
"They’re monsters. If we don’t kill them, they’re going to kill us."
But they approached this still, as if Binky was alive to be saved.
...
Cerberus broke out first, but it was Angel whose bullets traced through the casino, the Knight of Tomorrow's protection over her as she rained bullets from above. Between bullets and claws, beanie man was covered. Too many cooks may make quick work, but on the other hand, too many cooks would just get in each others way. Swinging down from the air vent, Witch Hunter landed some distance away from that duel and spotted a second individual instead. A sharply-dressed man, completely at odds with the others who ran away in a panic. Embers burned from the cigarillo in his mouth, that spot of light giving away his location from the bannisters of the second floor, and Witch Hunter tightened her grip on her Dai-Katana in response, the light in her own eyes evidence enough that she had spotted him.
Holy sigils formed over the scabbard, symbols of prohibition of the arcane and the occult. She dashed forth, a singular swing slinging the mana-consuming symbols towards the smoking man. If it struck him, it wouldn't kill or even harm him. But if he were a monster? It would drain him. And that would be enough for her to know whether to strike with intent or to rely on human tools.
In the meanwhile?
It was through the aisles of slot machines, up the carpeted stairs, and then a quick turn to charge for the crouching hypothetical-tiger. One hand on her scabbard, the other on the hilt, as if intending to draw it in order to deliver a bisecting strike.
But that was bait, of course.
The Witch Hunter simply wanted to provoke a reaction and parry whatever choice he made for his offensive. And if she got things wrong, and he turned out to just be an underpaid card shark? Well, she'd be happy she didn't crack his skull open too! Monsters were monsters, but the problem with weretigers was that you couldn't tell the difference when they were just humans.
Huh. Maybe she should say something too?
Right.
"FBI! ON YOUR KNEES!"
Yeah, it do be like that huhuhu.
The Mannekins were a touch more fragile than he envisioned. If they could break so easily, even with Personal Barriers, perhaps a focus on disarming and restraining them wasn’t necessary after all. Otis reckoned that a bullet or two could solve the conundrum of these constructs just as easily.
No matter.
The rumbling of uprooted trees signified the start of the second round as their trunks smashed against the earth. The weight enough would’ve made for a lethal collision: even if one’s Personal Barrier held out, they’d be pinned against a weight that’d gradually crush them. Otis stepped forwards as the trunk separated him and Davil, who had barely managed to survive himself. The boy’s pain tolerance was something special. Usually, the flailing of broken bones would cause internal wounds from jagged bone slicing through veins and flesh underneath the skin. And there was no way that all his other injuries would’ve been fully healed by the rudimentary first-aid performed upon him as well. An odd breed of human, that one was.
“Chunji, take care of Davil,” Otis spoke, eyeing the stance taken by Alto. “Ideally, just carry him far from here.” The Strigidae noticed too, how the bullet kept its speed even when it was fully stopped. Useful to know for the future. It didn’t look like Alto was going to try his hand at destroying the bullet either. Ethos operated under unknown laws. Who knew if the individual pieces of the bullet would simply continue to bore against the Personal Barrier or not?
Well, if their instructor wasn’t going to risk it…
Symbols were traced in the wind and essence was drawn from the forehead, before being sent in a selective wave over Otis’s surroundings. That familiar ‘knock-knock’ echoed through his classmate’s minds, a telepathic channel connecting any willing participants.
Hildegunde, fire two of those Ethos-shots of yours. One for each eye. It’ll block off the majority of his vision. Rio, be prepared to intercept a counterattack, but also explain to me your capabilities. Chloe too, if you wish to partake. If not, join Chunji and Davil. Iraleth, you’ll be our vanguard. Coordinate with Ciara so that the two of you are always opposite of each other. Great light creates deep shadows.
The Strigidae flicked the chamber of his firearm out, making a show of counting the six rounds still inside. Then, he settled his gaze upon Alto.
“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, of course it makes a sound. And whether those trees fall due to silent casting or your own prime essence, Instructor Alto, is similarly meaningless. The primal conduit, in this moment, is you, the same as your prime essence.”
He locked the chamber in once more, flicking off the safety.
“I would like to ask though. Outside of our personal satisfaction, would you be willing to give any extra reward to us if we’re able to break through your Personal Barrier?”
© 2007-2026