Mortim

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

*Ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring! Click-...* A small box-like structure is flipped open, one ball-joint allows it to split in half to expand its rectangular shape. Pale fingers hold said shape to a cold face creased by concerned features. One word shimmers atop our devices outline, "Earth."

"Yeah?" A gentle voice grates through damaged vocal cords.
"This is senior agent Hernandez of the CMA. Your number is in our records regarding-" A brass-tax, effeminate voice warbles through an alien translator into the ear of the one who holds our communications box.
"Ahllasta?" He'd say, sighing all the while. Several fingers begin to pace his temples anxiously.
"-Y-yeah..." Hernandez would say, having been thrown off by an interruption. "-You see, she's been displaying a consistent lack of respect for authority. You're listed as her *Papers shuffle*... uhm, retainer?"
"Yes, yes. I'm-... on my way." Soft-spoken sorrow paints an anguished demeanor in shades of brief hesitance.
"W-well you don't need to come here. I'm citing embassador's rights to expedite her removal from our Earth-Space jurisdiction! Under regulatory-" Hernandez is cut off once more just as her voice climbs into throngs of judicial anger.
"Senior agent Hernandez. You can't claim ambassador privileges as a tertiary power. You 'can' claim assistance from a transfer retainer. Don't worry; we aren't all like her." Our man's bristly words float with a light-hearted authority.
"Look here! I'm the supervisor to your 'Councils' little transfer program, what I say-!" *Click!* Hernandez is cut short by a closing of the communications box.

The box is eventually stored inside a pseudo-hoodies front pocket. One spidery hand withdraws a small notebook from the same pocket. Once-opened, the first page of this pamphlet displays only a giant question mark.

"Outer-lands, Earth." Hoarse words bounce against crumpled pages.

Once the words mentioned above are spoken the notebook begins to alight with various throngs of written information for several pages to come. Several moments are spent flipping through salvaged history and statistics pertaining to the local political climate. For several minutes this continues until that communications box is pulled back into open space. *Click!* "EFC" With that spoken command the cube vibrates and rings, sending some strange signal into deep space.

"This is the EFC. Central line." Metallic chords ring against an ivory ear.
"C-K-SB. Requesting full ambassador and temporary governance rights for an outer world, Earth. Secondary requests: same surrounding sol rights, a class five regulator, and, uhm...-" The man stops for a moment to rub at tightening neck-muscles with his free hand. "- Actually, make that three class six regulators, and an all-silent transport. Sage S-backing." Roughly twenty seconds are spent in silence after this request; anxious fingers continue to rub against a tense nape.
"All permissions granted. Transport and supplies to arrive at your present locale." Automated syllables persevere until finally ending with a *Click!*. The communications box shuts again.

Our man looks out across his surrounding landscape. A greenish sunset collides with a crimson sky in the distance. He sighs at the burden of monitoring an impulsive huntress such as Ahllasta. Regardless, what truly troubles this wizard residing countless light-years from Earth isn't a ferocious woman, it's what was referred to as a 'Standing Ambassador's Contract' for Earth. This contract spoke of an ancient myth even this man had heard of on his far-removed homeworld — the tale of Pahn.

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Ahllasta finds herself to be suddenly plagued by an inexplicable feeling of dread. Her gut is better than she'd bargain for it to be.

"You're right, we don't have time to argue!" Her voice shoots through grating teeth, each canine sounding more like a tumbling boulder than anything a human can audibly produce. With these words, her body begins to radiate an overwhelming presence. Thoughts and ideas pour from her feral figure like an ocean being spilled out of a cup.

Gnashing teeth, searing steam, roaring bonfires in the distance, dark shadows looming in every direction; all of these things cascade into Anora's psyche without resistance as Ahllasta begins to look even more intimidating as if she'd somehow gained twelve feet in size. Though she hasn't actually increased in height, it wouldn't stop Anora from possibly perceiving her feet to be big enough to squish her completely.

"Want to bet your exhausted magic supply on a fight with me?!" Ahllasta would say, her words followed by deep and thunderous vibratto. You'd sooner call her words thunder than thinking them to be anything like speech. Each syllable spills like a landslide into the open air. Perhaps she's bluffing about knowing Anora's current state, either way, it'd be hard to make a bet against that body which now literally permeates a predators presence.

The aforementioned ambiguous force would be just weak enough as to not totally overwhelm Anora nor cause her to lose consciousness.

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Sweltering heat spills as a searing mist into Darsby's conscious space. Somehow, Ahllasta's unregulated presence is affecting him inside his invisible realm. This sensation begins to reawaken memories both old and recent in his mind. He can hear a woman shouting something about revenge while his chest slowly starts to burn. His mind begins to home into its present circumstance at a higher pace than before.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

I appreciate the change, I imagine it's going to make things a bit smoother in the long run here lol.

I most definitely did not draw that, I wish I was that good of an artist lol. I usually have reference photos for the characters I introduce or something close. I have a Pinterest account I use for inspiration. I also enjoy using descriptors though, I should flex the vocabular muscles whenever I get the chance.

Don't worry, it's fun to share it! I've been doing some D&D styled RP's involving this same world lately and it's done wonders for me on learning how to ease people into this world. My recent learnings won't show until we're a bit in but at least things should be a bit more bearable moving forward.

Yeah, we've been marching right along lately!

I haven't really but I've been feeling a bit better. I've been going through a whole lot of illness type stuff lately.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Ahllasta shifts posture again, one hand falling to its respective side. This free hand poises itself as if it were ready to chop and jab at the drop of a hat. Her carnivorous eyes dance for less than three seconds this time around, dashing from the hallway and then back to Anora after deciding their time is better spent in a damaged living room. She's thinking, turning some despicable thought on its other side via firey metaphorical utensils.

"How about this?-" Ahllasta, being more a woman of action than debate and bargaining, had made up her mind to follow a new, unspoken course of action. She lived from the hip and enacts all her decisions to reflect said truth.

A small shimmering thread, only visible by its super-thin reflective surface, is withdrawn from Ahlassta's pocket. One small metallic sphere is held, dangling at the end of said string. Ahllasta twirls the sphere in circles until suddenly it glows a bright red alongside emitting a low hum. She eventually tosses the sphere through a nearby wall into the hallway where her partner is, a light *Crack* and spray of dust being the only indication that it's moved through two layers of plaster.

*Crash!* Through the earlier mentioned plaster comes Ahllasta's alleged partner via a faint twitch of her wrist, dazed and completely wrapped in that thin threading. "Wha-?" He'd sputter amidst clouds of dust before a simple flick to his temple sends a sharp *Crack!* through the room, disabling the poor man as he slumps into being entirely supported by a faint twinkling twine. Not even a second later he is dropped, still bound, to the floor below. In Ahllasta's hand is a pair of jingling keys.

"My rides faster." She'd say whilst mischief paints her features in prideful swathes. She lets go of the yarn in her hand and gently kicks at Darsby's shattered leg in such a way that he's pulled across the floor towards Ahllasta, underneath Anora's hellhound. Another seemingly gentle kick and Darsby is likely tossed over Ahllasta's shoulder should there be no interference.

Throughout this entire affair which transpired as if it were some pre-ordained course of perfected action occurring in no more than seven seconds flat, Ahllasta never broke eye-contact with Anora. "You're coming with, dear." She'd casually remark with a sneer before turning towards the way out, intending to walk to the black 1974 Mustang she'd arrived in.

A cell-phone, somewhere on the floor in the hallway continues to emit faint sounds. "Hello...? Vince...? Respond now, or I'll assume the worst," would come a stern voice.

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"So, I'm on Earth?" Darsby would mutter to himself inside a swirling vortex of jumbled conversations. His mind is still far from present circumstance.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Oh I'm sorry! I must have missed that part when I went to make my response. I didn't mean to do that! Thank you for your understanding.

She looks a good bit like this:
Sorry for not posting a pic sooner!

Her name is pronounced "Ah-last-uh". I appreciate you taking the time to ask, most people don't care about specific pronunciations. Makes me feel like my characters actually mean something lol :D

Also, HOORAY FOR PAGE 3!

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

A leathery tongue struts slowly over the lower, then the upper lip of Ahllasta's vicious mouth. Sharp canines are seen for a brief moment behind meaty lips. Feral eyes pace Anora's figure for roughly five seconds straight before speech again enters this encounter. Her vascular arms split from one another to place hands on burly hips.

"All I'll say is, I'd like to defeat Darsby. Before I could witness anything other than this reproachful form-" Ahllasta kicks at Darsby's limp leg, a light *crack* being heard from beneath his flesh as she does so. "-my partner shot him down. I'll help you, so long as you don't get in the way when I see fit to make good on my grudge." Each sentence passes quickly into the growls and sneers that follow her words. She sounds like an animal accustomed to speech only enough for it to look relatively natural, words being a tool she only employs when needed. She speaks just silently enough for her partner not to hear of any bargaining happening in the living room.

The grey-suited man can be heard from the living room. Sighs, "yes, I know" and "I get it, but this is big, I'm sure" can be heard on several occasions past the thin living room walls. One finger is lightly tapping against Ahllasta's hip to express urgency over time. The rest of her is motionless aside from animalistic facial features, making that one fidgeting appendage stand out.

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Darsby swims in a sea of dislocated words. He's taken to sorting out the sentences he's spoken to others after deciding he is physically somewhere entirely foreign. Words collide to form coherent statements about him; statements align to express when everything was said. Perhaps by understanding his own need to say what he said he can understand what pushed him into this state. Perhaps he'd be better off sticking to what he's most recently witnessed, either way, it's better to start somewhere specific than nowhere in particular. At least, he hopes he's taking a correct course of action.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Darsby feels his spirit slip from space and time alongside the sound of gently running rapids. He was here only moments ago during his bodies previous recuperation. Ebony and ivory collide as shadows strike surrounding lights with force against his unsubstantial form. Thoughts and relevant information struggle to formulate inside this flowing dimension just beyond the haze of our supposedly solid reality. Conflict over what it is that has just occurred fights for supremacy of importance. Darsby wrestles to regain proper sentience after having been forcefully tossed into this other realm while Anora resolves to stand for whatever semblance of life she may yet hold.

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This huntress tenses further, proving that this action isn't impossible despite her visibly flexed muscles. Ahllasta had taken notice of Anora and kept her reaction at bay. The creature before her had been subdued entirely without a struggle despite her previous wishes. She knew this man; she had a score with him.

Ahllasta had wished to perch herself atop Darsby's body, waiting for him to recover so she may derive the satisfaction of genuinely striking him down. The man in grey, Vince, had taken said luxury away. She cared for little else than prey and grudges; in our present scenario, he had stolen both.

Slowly, Ahllasta turns towards Anora. Though she reeks of aggression and ill-kept notions of hate, she didn't appear to be directing any of it towards our young human.
"Girl, you know this man?" Her words slip with the anger of a military instructor struggling to keep their louder vocalities at bay.

Ahllasta's posture would then change upon Anora mustering the strength to fabricate veritable hell-hounds. This alien huntress has one small but thick brown horn protruding its sharp surface from the center of her forehead, glittering by the faint specks of blood that splattered over its surface from the previous attack. Just below said feature dwells a newly revived outward mode of emotion. All at once this woman shifts from predator to aggressive negotiator. Her arms casually lace themselves beneath her breasts, her hips sway slightly to the left, her feet turn somewhat outwards. All that still held on to vicious dismay were her eyes, those heinous, beating eyes.

"He needs you for something, doesn't he? What if I said I'd help you get him out of here?" Her lips curled once more to release those leering words. She spoke like a beast turning to address some lesser animal impassionately.

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Darsby begins to recollect his fragmented self from within the spatial void he now occupies. The outside world comes to him in muffled waves of prismatic light and slurred sounds. Cognition begins to spin it's whirring gears again as method transcend logic, feelings collide to transcend expression, and finally, words arrive to make sense of the pieces at play.

"I'm... I've been put here?" He musters to say to himself, still many moments from making sense of current circumstance. He attempts to align an out-of-order sequence of memories. Gunfire, cars, smoke, a girl, conversation, a residence. He feels he's getting close, but this likely won't produce any externally visible results in an amount of time that Anora should reasonably bargain for.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

What happened next would have happened fast, extremely fast. There's a realm which dwells outside of humanities visual capacities. This is the realm where the next four seconds transpire.

Darsby, still entirely unarmed by his standards, was caught off guard by the feminine huntress closing in on our farmhouse. He couldn't have heard, seen, or smelled this woman underneath the veil of her magic.

*Crash!* Through the window came an invisible mass. Reacting on instinct, Darsby turns left to face whatever hidden foe may have reared its fangs here. *Bang!Bang!-Crash!* Two rounds exit a worn revolver's chamber just before Darsby is thrown into the wall at his left with such force that he nearly breaks through it entirely. With a faint shimmer, our new opponent is revealed, one of her hands has wholly passed through the center of Darsby's chest.

Rippling muscles cascade down the exterior of heavily tanned arms sprouting from a grey tank-top. Loose fitting cargo shorts rest just above sandals — crimson hair jutts in many directions atop veined features contorted by beauty and habitual rage. Fierce orange eyes glow near Darsby's chest as she withdraws her arm from the gaping hole she's created to quickly strike both of his shoulders with a blur of punches. *Crack!-popop!* Bones snap under the weight of her near-invisible strikes.

The man and his grey suit stand just as this woman finishes her assault, her right arm drenched in chunks of bone and strips of flesh.

"Ahllasta! I told you to stay in the car!" He barks, though somehow still sounding unenthused by present circumstance.
"He's a Baron." She'd quietly say in a mist of rage while staring down at the sputtering form of her victim.

Darsby is again rendered as a mass of broken form. He's crumpled into the ground and left to sputter in effort to speak, both arms limp at his sides after having slid to the Earth below.

*Bang!* With one movement, so fast it escaped sight, the grey man had drawn a pistol and fired a round into Darsby's twitching head. With that, Anora's companion went silent.

"Then he's stuck in bureaucracy until his body's fixed. I'm making the call." He then pulls a cell-phone to his ear, sighing while stepping from the room to mumble silently at some unnamed superior.

The Huntress is all that's left in the room. Her lips are curled int a snear as she stares down upon what looks to be a corpse. She's openly furious, having been robbed of the ability to speak her mind to the figure at her feet.

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

I'll be responding to both of these posts soon hopefully. I've just been very ill lately and haven't been able to get myself to write these out properly. Sorry!

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

*Thump thump!* The rattling wood, first to come before unhindered footfall. These sounds blasted our agents heightened senses. He'd yielded his ears to higher energies. Said ethereal resource directed him to locate two targets on the uppermost floor of this agriculture estate. He felt he needed to use this perceptual magnification. Typically his sixth sense would be enough, the vague pressure that allows most magic users awareness of nearby sentient entity's. His instincts were right that it wouldn't help him here.

The echoes of one pair of shoes and another pair of boots clapping casually against wood echoed through several hallways and rooms until finally filtering down into the dusty living room this agent had wandered into. Above he could sense it via his inner being, unhindered waves of converted earthly energies radiating from a woman. She was likely uneducated in magic but not entirely inept in her ability to hold her powers. She wasn't the biggest oddity here, even though she was to be considered odd. The queerest factor was her companion.

Typically, anything with the ability to think or be self-conscious emits waves of ambient energy that can be faintly interpreted with a trained sixth sense. The woman above radiates both this and another form of some converted energy that is at home in her mostly human body; the other individual radiates nothing. They are presumed to be humanoid as they did give off the sound bipedal movement creates, but, while approaching there is another oddity. This humanoid isn't breathing. One could even say that its presence was sucking in small waves of ambient energy into some abyssal pocket of unreadable magic. Everything else indicated that this was, in fact, a human male aside from the lack of breath and conscious radiance. His smells, his heat, his movements, nothing was out of the ordinary in those respects. 'What is that thing?' Regrettably, the time that could've been expected to be spent mulling over this target was at an end.

*Bang!* One magic projectile cleaves with force through the air, wood, and polished shoe leather all in one drastic swoop. A bullet had breached his footwear, just barely missing soft flesh, followed shortly by a powerful man's voice.

"The heart comes after the foot!" Whoever shouted this must be massive or grizzled beyond belief. Our agent wasn't looking forward to meeting them, but he fell to his knees and placed his hands behind his head nonetheless.
"Hopefully not.." Would be the response, he didn't plan to give up all at once. Even so, hearing/seeing things out would be better with so many unknowns at play. His heart and stomach had been lurching ever since he entered this house, keeping him from going on the offensive. Something more terrifying than his partner is nearby, he knows it.

Should anyone sprint downstairs, now that the spell is released, they'd find this man in all his present glory there. A disheveled individual in a black and grey pin-stripe suit of notable luxury is there. His left shoe radiates polish whilst his right smolders near the toes. His skin is practically white alongside his blondish-ivory hair that shoots as stress-born spikes in every direction from just the upper-scalp, the sides of his head have a faded cut. His eyes both have powerful red iris's, perhaps even luminescent similar to Darsby with deep suitaces underneath each of them. Unlike darsby, there was no pull to some strange form of profound and intrusive communication when meeting them.

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Darsby took the entirety of the time Anora gave him to gather himself further. Some deeper instinct born of combat told him to be ready for anything soon. He felt like eyes were watching him, or perhaps ears were listening. He couldn't correctly use his higher senses, or he's revealed to onlookers, so he relies on base animal sense. He squares his shoulders and descends the roof. Her words passed over him like mist; he's still held ajar by some mild form of shock that keeps him away from the real world.

Anora was waiting for him upon re-entering the attic. His return to the house was far more graceful than his exit, one acrobatic motion making use of his momentum and leverage to perform an entirely silent flip through the window once having gripped its edges. He'd land with a reasonably soft *Thump* upon one of his soles not three feet from Anora. Darsby then rose slowly, his body appearing mechanical in its ability to assume a standing position with minimal shift in posture. He half-turned towards Anora, to avoid eye-contact, an air of danger seeping into his voice.

"Stay still, something is in the house..-" Darsby quietly said. Strangely, if Anora had looked at him, she may have noticed that his lips hadn't moved, the whisper being generated by some other means. "-Try not to speak unless you notice something. Follow me." He then began descending the rickety attic stairs downward. His left hand held that polished revolver tight to his flank, his other hand gently reached back towards Anora in slight movements with each occasional shift in his targetted gaze as if he'd be ready to pull or push her away from danger should it be necessary. The whole process of his stride and protective posture looked trained in its graceful proficiency as if being an escort in times of risk was an activity he'd familiarised himself with. Images of him keeping watch over and transporting high-priority individuals under dangerous circumstance could be imagined after seeing him like this.

"Wait.." He'd project with posture and silent speech once reaching the stairway leading to the next floor down. He slowly, silently, and with much care aimed his revolver at an obscure spot on the ground beneath them. He was aiming back behind him; if Anora is in the way at this time, he will emit another unspoken whisper. "Out of the way." He'd fire between her legs if she didn't move.

*Bang!* One black bullet launched itself through floorboards and insulation into the center of the living room beneath them. Darsby would shout just after doing this. He was a predator, a warrior; perhaps it hadn't been revealed until now. Everything he did showed that he was used to these dangerous ways of living, trained for them. His voice was stark and demanded deep respect; its newfound authoritative verbality bled of someone who could make others obey merely by a single word. He didn't regard Anora during all of this; perhaps it hadn't occurred to him to do so. To him, she was his VIP, not something to be used as counsel.

"The heart comes after the foot!" He'd say, the meaning of these words made clear to the one who'd received the black round. It had struck with all intended accuracy, Darsby's gut sensations proving their worth after ages of being molded into their present state.

"Hopefully not..." A cold, faintly trembling voice would come from below. One muffled *Thud!* is heard alongside masculine suggestions in speech. The target had relinquished a spell of stealth and fell to its knees in surrender, a deal Darsby had understood after sensing our intruder's presence for the first time.

Nearly forgotten ways of being had been recalled to Darsby through his shock with the car accident earlier. He hadn't acted this way in a longer time than he'd care to admit — something about having someone not ten feet away to protect brought this out in him, for better or for worse.

Darsby would wait several seconds after firing to confirm the target had only fallen to his knees. Afterward, Darsby would descend. Should Anora attempt to go down the stairs before him, he'd sprint down them after her, keeping not more than five feet from the girl.
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In an ebon car several hundred yards away, a throbbing form of muscular majesty had made the first ploy towards its target prey. Her partner had only said not to take any 'steps' anywhere. There was a gross lack of instruction here. A spell of higher potency than previously seen envelops our huntress in swathes of invisibility and stealth. With this, she places both of her hands on the ground just beyond the doorway of the car. In one smooth motion, she balances the entirety of her weight on both hands.

With incredible grace and strength, she begins walking, no, running with near-vehicular speed towards the nearby house atop the palms of her callous hands. Soon she would arrive, soon she'd know what that stinging smell was. She'd been bothered with familiarity ever since having first smelt it. She knew that scent and had a feeling she would be able to fulfill a long-held resentment once encountering who its retainer. Soon, a tide of inhuman prowess would explode on these premises. Hopefully those present survive the encounter...

My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

Yeah, I'd like to apologize for being late again! It always feels like such a long wait for posts and then I end up taking six days or more myself lol. Hopefully, I didn't keep you waiting too long.

I'll try and post a picture or two of my sketches some time. It's mostly abstract stuff that starts at as realism. It doesn't look all that great though, its just fun to do while listening to music here and there. My favorite thing is sketching in this VR application I have on my computer. When I make a new video of one of my three-dimensional drawings I'll put the link on here.

She doesn't need to make anything of them lol, she hasn't even known him for a day. Realistically she won't have more than what her initial impressions yielded of him for a while. You've done a good job of that, I must say! :D

Well, the plot runs deep, and we're hardly even at the beginning of what I have roughly planned. I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far! I also greatly appreciate the compliment, your writing always does a good job of reminding of certain things I forget to put in or mention in previous posts. I have PLENTY left to learn of how to portray my tastes. xD

I wanted to mention, I really do enjoy the fact that you like to keep certain things like cursing and lewd scenes out of the RP. A lot of people rely on those to keep their story flowing and it's helped me to realize how unnecessary these things are the long term of a story to a higher degree than I once thought. Obviously, you know I won't keep out violence or nakedness out of things if they're necessary, but I know not to use these things as vehicles aside from the brief mention they require out of necessity for detail. Feel free to check me if I go too far, I kind of have a policy of going all out unless directed otherwise so know that you won't be offending me in the least over any corrections. I feel like you know this, but it doesn't hurt to say it again.

I hope I didn't control Anora at all in that last post. If I did, let me know! Darsby would have been moving kind of fast with everything so she might not have had time to interrupt too much of it. Just let me know if I need to edit anything! :D