Avatar of Indy Cooper
  • Last Seen: 2 yrs ago
  • Joined: 7 yrs ago
  • Posts: 192 (0.07 / day)
  • VMs: 1
  • Username history
    1. Indy Cooper 7 yrs ago
  • Latest 10 profile visitors:

Status

Recent Statuses

2 yrs ago
Current Free Ukraine, Free Tigray, Free Hong Kong, Free Myanmar, Free Everyone
3 likes
5 yrs ago
Yar of the Pig! Happy New Year everyone!
6 yrs ago
Year of the Pupper, wooo!
2 likes

Bio

User has no bio, yet

Most Recent Posts

"Yes, and make sure to keep the dressing clean or you'll get an infection," the small robot chimed at the human leaving the little tent Ahk-khrat-rhaz has set up just outside the main forum area. The male human waved noncommittally, and Ahk sighed, producing a whirring roar of wind from her breathing organs on her flank, rattling chitin and frightening the poor man half to death. He hurried himself out, cradling his freshly bandaged forelimb and not looking back. Ahk was certain that she would see him again in a few days with either a new wound or an infection. Humans were so stubborn about wound care, and she would never understand why.

She patted her little translator droid on the head affectionately with one of her fine-work forelimbs before folding it away and rotating herself to survey her equipment, racked as it was against one wall over the operating/diagnostics bed. she had very little, most of it jury-rigged and obsessively cleaned scavenge, though she had sprung for an up-to-date diagnostics wand and a brand new set of IncisionWare scalpels and saws, since those were always too blunted to recover, though she had already had to sharpen one or two blades. The damnable things were far harder to keep sharp than most realised, even given modern metallurgic techniques. She would have loved to get her hands on an adjustable laser scalpel, but that was far beyond her price range. And the power supply would no fit into her tiny tent.

All in all, she had a decent collection, and even better than to be expected from a non-descript tent in a dusty corner of the square with a poorly painted sign declaring 'Wounds and diseases treated, cybernetics examined, low cost, no questions', in several languages, hanging at an angle over the door flap. Inside, visitors were treated with the sight of the translator droid sitting, legless, on the front counter, and Ahk's bulk barely small enough to fit into the exam/treatment area with enough room to work. Probably intimidating to the smaller mammalian races, but thankfully she hadn't had to deal with many of them.

"Or much of anyone really," she thought to herself, 'theropod' head swinging out over the counter to glance outside. Without customers, she would not stay afloat, and then would be forced into homelessness. While that would make it arguably easier to get recruited by mercenaries, it would most assuredly make it harder to be recruited for her skill set instead of her sheer physical properties. She stared out into the crowded square, idly calculating infection rates of various diseases through the multi-species area and taking noted by diction on her droid about various theories her home planet had wrong about some species movement and colouration patterns, and waited for another patient to come in.
Oh yeeeah, I see that agora there. Looks nice. Shame if someone were to...

doctor in it.

I will post when I get back, which should be in two days or so, plus a bit of recovery time and a bit of writing time. See you kids soon!
Well, one of you could take top and the other second-in-command. Which raises another question, at least from me:

@Jbcool I am assuming, from the titles of the leadership positions, that there will be some significant number of NPC mercenaries running about with this group. It would also be kinda hard to merc around with only seven people, no matter how good they are. Is this correct, or are we a Firefly type group?
Yeah, everything's fine. Helping someone move across country.
So I am not constantly repeateing this every couple of whenever-someone-asks-me on the discord chat, I will be unavailable for posts between the first and the tenth or eleventh. I'll still be on the discord if I can be, but it'll prolly be spotty at best.
The ultimate in leader selection for mercenaries: Fist fiiiiight!

On a separate note, I too will be disappearing from actual IC posting from the first through the tenth or eleventh, as I have to drive a moving van cross-country(not mine). So if we start up while I am gone, know that I am reading and will post when I can. Thankfully Ahk isn't actually a real merc yet.
The Sally-Man


The old man sighed as he heard the young girl call out to him. Of course she would come to pester. Well, only one thing for it. He gripped his knees and got up painfully from the crook of tree roots he had been resting in, checking to make sure none of his various bits and baubles had fallen off. He'd be upset to lose one in these woods, fond as he was of them. Stepping out from behind the tree, he grinned. Seems that he had come out just as the girl had spun the other way, yelling at him in completely the wrong direction. He cleared his throat to get her attention, making sure to stay in a non-threatening pose. Young and inexperienced as she was, she could still be dangerous.

“Yes, you would want to help your friend, I am sure,” he said gruffly, mastering his face into a slight grimace. “Unfortunately, I am not entirely certain what there is to be done. Those notes were unfinished, and it seems my apprentice triggered some kind of backlash during the rituals.” He gestured up the slope towards the ruined cottage.

“There is a chance, mind you, that the girl's mind might still be in there somewhere. He might not have made that much of a mess. But I am not entirely certain we'd be doing the siren any favours by disorienting her a second time, and this one with the creeping horror of what was done to her and memories of a life she can no doubt no longer return to.”

His frown deepened, and he stroked his grizzled beard thoughtfully, staring at the younger alchemist. “I'm not sure what, precisely, to tell you about my erstwhile apprentice, however. His name is Sebastian, and had been studying with me for several decades.” The old man's eyes flashed, and for just a moment, there were as black as midnight, more crow than human.

“He has stolen several artefacts of mine, gathered over the course of my life. Most of them were either consumed in the ritual to create the siren or destroyed in the resulting cataclysm. That ritual dagger you found, for example, was an heirloom of a long dead friend. Ruined now, sadly. I don't know what all might have survived.”

He shook his head. “I do know that Sebastian himself is still alive. I can feel him still slithering about. And as you saw from your own perusal of his notes, he is a sick, twisted man. I wish I could say there's hope to turn him around, but that is not the case. I'm afraid he must be put down.”

“In the mean time,” he nodded back up the slope towards the ruins. “I will do what I can to analyse the siren. Berenice, you said her name was? I will make sure she has a good founding in her natural abilities, and some defensive and utilitarian magics to make her more comfortable. The sort of accidental creation she was born in, however, leaves it impossible to find any sort of reversal spell. For that, I am sorry.But I am sure that you will want to check for yourself, and there may indeed be a few things I can teach you, should you deign to show up and make sure I am trustworthy. And, as a token of good faith...”

He reached into the inner pocket of his long coat, fishing around for some moments before finally pulling out what looked like a dreamcatcher that had fared poorly in a windstorm or three. Though it looked like a tangle of string, black feathers, beads, and fur, as he held it up, it spread itself out into an intricate three-dimensional shape. And then immediately began humming slightly, the feathers all orienting back to Berenice's nest.

“While I am certain you have some fancy technological whatchamacallit do detect magic, there is no way like the old way. The pitch of the humming tells you how close, and the feathers will change, ah, there they go.” They had turned a bloody red, tinged with blue on the tips. “They will change colours to let you know what sorts of magics they are detecting. The beads will heat up if you are in eminent danger.” He folded up the whole thing into its seemingly natural shape of a ball of tangled string and held it out. “Free of charge. I don't need it right now, and if I do I can always make another.”
Gettin' closer, folks! Making me feel a bit antsy.
Almost made her less armoured and more spider-y, which would lessen the artillery part, but an HMG platform that can crawl on walls and ceilings would be pretty nifty.
@Synthorian True. I should say, human-sized people.
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet