Jaelnec isn't dieing, he is just largely paralyzed (which Aemoten told Thaler is the effect of yth venom; without him telling Thaler wouldn't even know yths have venom, since based on your previous posts they were unknown beings to her). And Koraakan very concretely told Thaler that Rilon is going to show up and intercept, and that the deal will only go in effect once the sword has actually been obtained since the one cannot hold enough sway over the Blood God himself without it. - Thaler also never asked for their safety in general, just for protection from Rilon and his schemes and whatever minions and beings he sent at them.
As for Aemoten admitting when he is wrong, then he does do it, and has done so repeatedly during the course of the RP, both to others and himself. He tends to rant and say not particularly well thought-out things when he is angry or - in the given case - terrified out of his mind and afraid to lose everything he has once more, granted (there is however still a filter between what he might think and what he says - are you certain you don't attribute some of the narrative to the dialogue? I really can't explain where she's coming from otherwise...), and he is already a miserable mental wreck at the moment... Then again, Thaler herself has not exactly been reasonable, either. Aemoten never actually belittled her (though interpretations may vary) and has made certain to keep his voice down at all times, and doesn't actually believe she did anything wrong besides talking a bit too loudly (if you recall, Aemoten's response to Jaelnec's inquiry about what was going on was "Rilon happened," not anything that would set blame on Thaler), and actually repeatedly tried to reassure her and asked what she thought they should or could do under the given circumstances, which she just completely ignored. For the most part he's simply been "I will stay beside you whatever you do, but please get rid of this thing before everyone realizes you have it [...] and don't do that, that is a bad idea." (And has probably repeated it more than just a few times too many.)
Oeh... Let's just hope it'll be over soon. They all need a break. Seriously.
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Okay, I am ... somewhat alive now. Maybe. I wonder whether I should withhold posting Aemoten until Jack's given the confirmation? Probably not... Aemoten is not really interacting with with Thaler in the part I already had typed out when Hymusia posted besides shouting her name in a half-shocked, half-surprised tone as she drops onto the stairs in front of him. He starts to go after her, but kind of freezes up when part two of Rilon shows up.
(Why, and she's cruel towards both Koraakan and Aemoten...)
(Why, and she's cruel towards both Koraakan and Aemoten...)
Note: got 2/3 of my posts written out, but since I was distracted, I couldn't finish. Will post and answer everything once back late today evening.
Edit: Apparently, I was more tired than I thought...
Edit: Apparently, I was more tired than I thought...
Hmm... Average adult human typically has a skull 16-18 cm wide, with a depth (distance from forehead to the back of head) of 20-22 cm. (6.3''-7'' and 7.9''-8.7'' respectively.) Skin, hair, et cetera would only add to the measurements... In other words, human skulls are pretty big things, and their jaws would have to be capable of opening up pretty wide to accommodate. And swallowing (I actually didn't go that far, I just pictured them taking half a head between their jaws) would be an entire different matter, especially since it has been stressed that they cannot expand their jawbones like snakes do... Neck-wise it would be okay, it's only jawbones that are questionable.
As for the yth width matter (aside of head) - I understood that the ten inches was at their widest. My statement was mostly derived from the fact they appear to be have fairly large heads, followed by three or four inches until the arms, which have been stated to be as thick and strong as average human arms (my own upper arms are maybe three and a half inches thick, so let's go with that for simplicity) begin... Well, there is not too much yth left after the arms. From the back of head to the underside of the last pair of arms would be over a foot. You'd also have to take account of the fact that the long arms make their upper bodies very massive, and accordingly, the hind body must be quite powerful to be of any use while moving or rearing up... (Edit: Okay, I tried to outline something based solely on the dimensions... There is clearly not enough yth left for a proper hind body. Edit2: Also made a basic sketch of one completely disregarding the given dimensions and simply relying on basic descriptive guidelines. Will clean it up and upload it later.)
...I have a vague recollection of wanting to say something more before I went to sleep, but it doesn't come to me at the moment.
As for the yth width matter (aside of head) - I understood that the ten inches was at their widest. My statement was mostly derived from the fact they appear to be have fairly large heads, followed by three or four inches until the arms, which have been stated to be as thick and strong as average human arms (my own upper arms are maybe three and a half inches thick, so let's go with that for simplicity) begin... Well, there is not too much yth left after the arms. From the back of head to the underside of the last pair of arms would be over a foot. You'd also have to take account of the fact that the long arms make their upper bodies very massive, and accordingly, the hind body must be quite powerful to be of any use while moving or rearing up... (Edit: Okay, I tried to outline something based solely on the dimensions... There is clearly not enough yth left for a proper hind body. Edit2: Also made a basic sketch of one completely disregarding the given dimensions and simply relying on basic descriptive guidelines. Will clean it up and upload it later.)
...I have a vague recollection of wanting to say something more before I went to sleep, but it doesn't come to me at the moment.
Granted, I've got too little information on what exactly happened or is happening over there to as much as know what to wish for, but I certainly hope things will get better. I am quite certain none us will mind the slower pace for a while (I would be one of the people who'd be a hypocrite if I ever did so), though it's always good to get a heads up just for the sake of not having to wonder what is going on...
On another note, I've got a bit of problem wrapping my mind around how yth heads are supposed to work with the size of their bodies. Their original description says they have seven-inch-long fangs and that their jaws are large enough to easily fit a man's head between them... The latter alone means that their heads would minimally be almost foot long (fifth of body length), and for them to be able to actually bite something with fangs that long, they'd need even bigger heads... And according to the dimensions given they are relatively short and stocky - hard to picture slithering - to begin with.
(For comparison, one of the snakes I occasionally see in my yard is about five feet long and doesn't breach two inches thick at the widest point.)
On another note, I've got a bit of problem wrapping my mind around how yth heads are supposed to work with the size of their bodies. Their original description says they have seven-inch-long fangs and that their jaws are large enough to easily fit a man's head between them... The latter alone means that their heads would minimally be almost foot long (fifth of body length), and for them to be able to actually bite something with fangs that long, they'd need even bigger heads... And according to the dimensions given they are relatively short and stocky - hard to picture slithering - to begin with.
(For comparison, one of the snakes I occasionally see in my yard is about five feet long and doesn't breach two inches thick at the widest point.)
Posted a Narandail-intro redux.
@Bunnita: Narandail has *neither* strengths or weaknesses listed in the sheet. My character sheets - the GM approving - generally only have name/age/species/physical description/equipment (and supernatural abilities or lack of such if applicable). I must say I intensely dislike weakness/strength/stats kind of systems, and heavily disapprove of the inclusion of personality section in sheets, as well as some other sometimes-mandatory sections.
@Hymusia: The Darkness?
@Bunnita: Narandail has *neither* strengths or weaknesses listed in the sheet. My character sheets - the GM approving - generally only have name/age/species/physical description/equipment (and supernatural abilities or lack of such if applicable). I must say I intensely dislike weakness/strength/stats kind of systems, and heavily disapprove of the inclusion of personality section in sheets, as well as some other sometimes-mandatory sections.
@Hymusia: The Darkness?
A dozen yards above the battlefield, seemingly precariously perched on what was naught but a meager stone ledge barely wide enough to fit a human foot on it, sat crouched an individual, and furthermore a rather unusual one compared to far most of the remainder of the defenders of the city. From his clawed birdlike feet to his rather uncanny complexion to the pair of magnificent membraned wings folded on his back, it was evident from the first halfhearted glance that this was no human, or even a person of elven, silvæan, or otherwise fabled descent.
Typically, the more human-looking folks tended to look upon him as if he was a some sort of foreign intruder amongst their numbers, with the dislike clearly evident on their faces... He was either borderline despised as if he were a vermin or otherwise a similarly undesirable element in the city-scape, or treated like some form of freak occurrence, half-beast, half-man, with people often seemingly expecting him to growl and bite like a feral creature would rather than act and - when needed - fight in a civilized manner. Some went as far as to suggest that his proper place would be amongst the werepyres rather than humans, since the formidable beasts were likewise winged and had claws. At that, he wasn't even unpleasant to look at, unlike these monstrosities - his features were most definitely unusual and perhaps even estranging for a human to look at, but in a very specific odd manner, he could probably even called handsome, as well as he looked much younger than a human of his age would have looked. It was due to the rampant ostracism that many of his winged kinsmen often opted to avoid humans entirely instead of living amongst them, but some endured humans' disdain in favor of escaping their society's own set of unique problems.
He himself had long gotten used to this kind of treatment - what else could he do, if he were to continue living amongst humans and the more, eh, human-looking humanoids? Those who merely stared at him or sent sideways glances in his direction were easy enough to tolerate; some of them were quite probably simply curious, even, not disapproving of his very existence. Those who regarded him as a cheap labor-force were fine, too . . . as long as they did not try to avoid paying the agreed price after he had done his part. The ones to yell insults at him he could usually put up with, likewise, but when it came to throwing rocks at him or poking him with real weapons... Then, then he usually had had enough and either left or retaliated in some manner. By that point, most unbiased minds would probably have said that he made a fine paragon of patience even if he finally did snap, he figured.
Granted, in case he retaliated it was usually him who got in trouble, not the initiators, but at the very least - as ironical as it might have sounded - one of the less than handful of people he would have dared call friends was a rather influential member of the force which generally attempted to keep order on the streets. That had had a tendency to keep him out of the worst of the consequences being picked fights with could lead to when your likes were not exactly in general favor.
In the end, he had not killed or cripplingly injured anyone mostly innocent, nor stolen anything or been the actual instigator, so there was no true reason to detain him.
Today, however, today it all could not matter less. Since if they lost today, there would no more be the city he had recently been living in, no more citizens to pick on him, and no more friends to help him out if the latter got out of hand. Today, the city-folk seemingly forgot that they was a largely undesirable resident, and if they even acknowledged his existence in the background, they were merely grateful that there was another gun on their side rather than felt resentful towards him.
It was all because today . . . today was devoted to battle.
By all rights, Narandail - so he had named himself for the sake of convenience - was not even certain his friend was even still alive now, let alone would still be so by the sundown. In any case, he did not manage to detect the man amongst those of the defenders who were still standing. Armored men, drenched in blood both their own and their monstrous foes', were all distressingly similar. There was no time for looking for familiar figures, for even a moment of hesitation meant that a monster had a moment longer to try and rip one of their dwindling numbers to bloody shreds. That one could, amongst other things, very easily be the very person you were attempting to spot. Furthermore, philosophical dwellings were naught but needless distractions and the death-counts could wait until the battle was over - thusly, Narandail spent no time upon either.
Having loaded his gun, the agiroan - like his species was called - lifted the firearm, its back coming to rest against his shoulder, one of his fingers finding the trigger and the muzzle of the weapon moving to at roughly the center of the back of a werepyre, a few inches beneath the point between the creature's shoulderblades.
The various shouts, cries and roars reached the winged man's ears, forming a hard-to-decipher cacophony. Someone cried out in pain, the sound coming clear enough to transcend the ambient noise; a werepyre howled in distress in another location, and another beast roared in bloodthirsty rage. One man was yelling for Auroreon, Narandail was fairly definite; only a short while later, the same man's death-cry pieced the air as he was promptly torn into two. At the very least, the man's death was not about to be left unredeemed - the beast had stopped to stand on the same spot during the action, and that was when Narandail pulled the trigger.
Sparks were released, gunpowder was ignited and the bullet flew, ending up hitting the target's shoulder rather than some point by the center of the creature's back. The fact that the shot was not entirely accurate was no surprise - the distance was such -, however to hit higher when the gravity bids the opposite? Small irregularities and the wind combined could produce rather interesting results. At the very least werepyres were large - harder to miss entirely than lesser-framed beings.
Without bothering himself with speculations, the winged man went on to reload his gun; it was a dreadfully slow activity under those dire circumstances, despite his comparatively long practice with it. The only good thing was that he had gotten skilled enough with it to do it as quickly as was possible even when he was positioned like he was and constantly scanning the vicinity.
The man was correct when he, before his death, claimed that the werepyres were about to reach the mages and gunmen - in fact, he was one of the very few in a relatively safe position. Not all had wings to reach higher places, and not all had hard talons on their feet fit for clinging onto seemingly impossible surfaces...
Granted, werepyres could fly as well as climb, but that's why he was watching his surroundings. Being shot straight into the middle of one's face with a larger bullet from barely three yards away was never particularly pretty, especially when the face under question was monstrous to begin with.
For a moment the winged man's eyes locked onto a figure appearing from what seemed to be a rift in air, the rift dark and unnatural, the figure itself undefined and blurry for a good few moments before as if solidifying and becoming more material-looking. The petite figure effortlessly flung a tendril at a nearby werepyre and dragged the beast face-first into dirt even before she began moving, emanating a sense of almost-obliviousness.
For a moment longer the winged man watched the woman, how the battle raged on, but she did not seem to care, only once briefly turning to face a slightly misguided human holding up a sword to her - only to flee in the other direction as the fragile-looking creature put up a truly terrifying, nightmarish visage in the way of a friendly reminder that she was not to be messed with. Another werepyre learned it very soon in a far more fatal manner. Whoever the woman was - Narandail was rather certain he had seen her before, not long before the battle began -, her form could be considered pretty ... up until she displayed her powers and it turned unnerving kind of uncanny. Pretty but with a nightmarish side. And strange. Definitely strange.
Not willing to distract himself further - it was only because he could do little else but watch what was going on while loading the gun that he had followed her for a while, Narandail turned his attention away from the woman and once more raised his gun, aimed, and fired. The effect was imminent, as the target dropped from feet with a mix of enraged roar and a pained shriek. It was not dead, it was still quite dangerous, but its spine at the waist had been hit - a truly lucky shot - and the beast rendered with a pair of useless limbs. Someone else may end its life . . . firing at it when there were still comparatively healthy werepyres roaming about would have been a waste of time and bullets, seeing how the healthy ones were a significantly larger threat.
About the time it would have taken one to count to twenty or thirty at a moderate pace passed, and the agiroanian gunman had another hulking monster on aim. This one had decided to sprint closer, probably lured in by the sound of the solitary marksman's gun firing. Again, the winged man pulled the trigger, but this time he did not score as lucky hit as he had the last time. He did not miss, that was true, but the bullet only hit the beast's upper arm and punched a marginal hole through its wing-membrane. This kind of injury did more to agitate the monster than to stop it. There was also not enough time to reload the gun before the beast would have managed to scale the vertical wall leading up to his position.
Quickly making the decision - close quarters combat with a werepyre while positioned in a not too convenient spot did not feel like a particularly inviting opportunity - the winged man threw the strap of his gun over his head and one bare shoulder, keeping the weapon in front of himself as if it were a strange kind of handbag rather than slinging it over his back (it would have gotten in the way of his wings during flight, or at the very least proved to be notably more inconvenient than in this arrangement), grabbed his spear from the leaning position it had been stored in with the other hand that was not gripping the gun's barrel, and launched himself into air, much to the frustration of the enraged werepyre clinging to the wall with its hands digging its wicked claws into the available cracks just two yards from where Narandail's feet had been gripping the ledge. Sure, werepyres could fly, too, but the agiroan was lighter and more maneuverable and thusly held the upper hand in air.
Predictably, the creature behind him wanted to give a chase, but by the time the beast had taken to air, the smaller winged being was already a few dozen yards higher up and facing the monstrosity, mighty wingbeats carrying him three feet and a half backwards and up each as the winged man waited. And then his wings snapped first half-shut, then onto his back entirely as he dived - not precisely at the werepyre, but rather aiming to pass over the creature. At the right moment, his spear drew an arc in the air, seemingly barely grazing the beast, but then he was already past the creature and his wings snapped open again as he went over into swift glide.
Despite the briefness and seeming lack of severity in the contact with the winged man's spear, the werepyre first tilted in the air, and then fell, crashing sideways into the ground. It was quite hard to fly when one of your one wing's membrane-panels was just two loose stretches of skin flapping uselessly in the wind, sliced by the spear-tip. The impact did not kill the beast, as it got to its feet a few short moments later, but now, in addition to the unremarkable hole in the creature's wing-membrane that nevertheless produced a steady stream of blood, one of its wings was now hanging limply - when the spear-tip had made it useless for flight, the fall had broken it. And it still looked entirely willing to fight on? Resilient bastard, may it slowly bleed out.
From halfway across the battlefield, an order to gather was roared out; Auroreon, Narandail presumed. With a tilt to be body and momentary slight retracting of his right wing, he made a half circle in air and headed for the voice. Having wings was a massive advantage - where others had to painstakingly crawl across the terrain, he just glided over, significantly faster than a running man, capable of keeping up with even a running horse.
It did not take long for him close in to Auroreon, sweep low and halt one's speed, dropping to ground almost next to Auroreon and immediately setting to reload his gun, wings not folded to the back, but rather threateningly held to his sides, with the wing-thumb-spikes pointing forward and the remainder of his wing-fingers pressed against his wing-arms so that the membranes' span was mostly out of the way of harm.
"Pick up your sword if you don't have some trick up in your sleeve," the winged creature's voice hissed to the mercenary. Was it his place to give orders to others? Probably not, but he felt uncomfortable enough in this particular place even without people standing about seemingly empty-handed and waiting to be attacked. "If you don't have a better plan, I'll take another position with my gun, or at the least move to the air in case those beasts would think of attacking from above; I'm more useful in either place than here on ground."
That was true. Although he could probably impale a Werepyre on one of his wing-spikes with an accurate strike, he felt rather vulnerable on the ground, furthermore so when he could suddenly find himself beneath a flying opponent. Had he not been driven away from his previous position, he probably would not have responded to the call at all.
- He was a somewhat slow runner due to his build, and relatedly not the fastest dodger, and furthermore using his wing-spikes meant putting his wing-membranes pretty much in harm's way, and that was a kind of injury he preferred not to sustain. Wing-membrane injuries, although those tended to heal very quickly, were rather unpleasant. For one, those would hinder his flight or outright anchor him to the ground, for the second those tended to be unproportionally painful and always seemed to bleed profusely, even when small.
The winged man finished loading his gun, and lifted it into firing position, widened eyes flickering from Auroreon to the surroundings, wings every now and then twitching ever so slightly when motion occurred nearby. Werepyres could fly, but yet they tried to break through the meleé-fighters rather than flying overhead and targeting the more harmful gunmen and mages - many of whom would be mostly helpless in close combat - first. Why?
"I wonder why they don't fly when it'd give them obvious edge," the agiroan noted. "It bothers me."
Typically, the more human-looking folks tended to look upon him as if he was a some sort of foreign intruder amongst their numbers, with the dislike clearly evident on their faces... He was either borderline despised as if he were a vermin or otherwise a similarly undesirable element in the city-scape, or treated like some form of freak occurrence, half-beast, half-man, with people often seemingly expecting him to growl and bite like a feral creature would rather than act and - when needed - fight in a civilized manner. Some went as far as to suggest that his proper place would be amongst the werepyres rather than humans, since the formidable beasts were likewise winged and had claws. At that, he wasn't even unpleasant to look at, unlike these monstrosities - his features were most definitely unusual and perhaps even estranging for a human to look at, but in a very specific odd manner, he could probably even called handsome, as well as he looked much younger than a human of his age would have looked. It was due to the rampant ostracism that many of his winged kinsmen often opted to avoid humans entirely instead of living amongst them, but some endured humans' disdain in favor of escaping their society's own set of unique problems.
He himself had long gotten used to this kind of treatment - what else could he do, if he were to continue living amongst humans and the more, eh, human-looking humanoids? Those who merely stared at him or sent sideways glances in his direction were easy enough to tolerate; some of them were quite probably simply curious, even, not disapproving of his very existence. Those who regarded him as a cheap labor-force were fine, too . . . as long as they did not try to avoid paying the agreed price after he had done his part. The ones to yell insults at him he could usually put up with, likewise, but when it came to throwing rocks at him or poking him with real weapons... Then, then he usually had had enough and either left or retaliated in some manner. By that point, most unbiased minds would probably have said that he made a fine paragon of patience even if he finally did snap, he figured.
Granted, in case he retaliated it was usually him who got in trouble, not the initiators, but at the very least - as ironical as it might have sounded - one of the less than handful of people he would have dared call friends was a rather influential member of the force which generally attempted to keep order on the streets. That had had a tendency to keep him out of the worst of the consequences being picked fights with could lead to when your likes were not exactly in general favor.
In the end, he had not killed or cripplingly injured anyone mostly innocent, nor stolen anything or been the actual instigator, so there was no true reason to detain him.
Today, however, today it all could not matter less. Since if they lost today, there would no more be the city he had recently been living in, no more citizens to pick on him, and no more friends to help him out if the latter got out of hand. Today, the city-folk seemingly forgot that they was a largely undesirable resident, and if they even acknowledged his existence in the background, they were merely grateful that there was another gun on their side rather than felt resentful towards him.
It was all because today . . . today was devoted to battle.
By all rights, Narandail - so he had named himself for the sake of convenience - was not even certain his friend was even still alive now, let alone would still be so by the sundown. In any case, he did not manage to detect the man amongst those of the defenders who were still standing. Armored men, drenched in blood both their own and their monstrous foes', were all distressingly similar. There was no time for looking for familiar figures, for even a moment of hesitation meant that a monster had a moment longer to try and rip one of their dwindling numbers to bloody shreds. That one could, amongst other things, very easily be the very person you were attempting to spot. Furthermore, philosophical dwellings were naught but needless distractions and the death-counts could wait until the battle was over - thusly, Narandail spent no time upon either.
Having loaded his gun, the agiroan - like his species was called - lifted the firearm, its back coming to rest against his shoulder, one of his fingers finding the trigger and the muzzle of the weapon moving to at roughly the center of the back of a werepyre, a few inches beneath the point between the creature's shoulderblades.
The various shouts, cries and roars reached the winged man's ears, forming a hard-to-decipher cacophony. Someone cried out in pain, the sound coming clear enough to transcend the ambient noise; a werepyre howled in distress in another location, and another beast roared in bloodthirsty rage. One man was yelling for Auroreon, Narandail was fairly definite; only a short while later, the same man's death-cry pieced the air as he was promptly torn into two. At the very least, the man's death was not about to be left unredeemed - the beast had stopped to stand on the same spot during the action, and that was when Narandail pulled the trigger.
Sparks were released, gunpowder was ignited and the bullet flew, ending up hitting the target's shoulder rather than some point by the center of the creature's back. The fact that the shot was not entirely accurate was no surprise - the distance was such -, however to hit higher when the gravity bids the opposite? Small irregularities and the wind combined could produce rather interesting results. At the very least werepyres were large - harder to miss entirely than lesser-framed beings.
Without bothering himself with speculations, the winged man went on to reload his gun; it was a dreadfully slow activity under those dire circumstances, despite his comparatively long practice with it. The only good thing was that he had gotten skilled enough with it to do it as quickly as was possible even when he was positioned like he was and constantly scanning the vicinity.
The man was correct when he, before his death, claimed that the werepyres were about to reach the mages and gunmen - in fact, he was one of the very few in a relatively safe position. Not all had wings to reach higher places, and not all had hard talons on their feet fit for clinging onto seemingly impossible surfaces...
Granted, werepyres could fly as well as climb, but that's why he was watching his surroundings. Being shot straight into the middle of one's face with a larger bullet from barely three yards away was never particularly pretty, especially when the face under question was monstrous to begin with.
For a moment the winged man's eyes locked onto a figure appearing from what seemed to be a rift in air, the rift dark and unnatural, the figure itself undefined and blurry for a good few moments before as if solidifying and becoming more material-looking. The petite figure effortlessly flung a tendril at a nearby werepyre and dragged the beast face-first into dirt even before she began moving, emanating a sense of almost-obliviousness.
For a moment longer the winged man watched the woman, how the battle raged on, but she did not seem to care, only once briefly turning to face a slightly misguided human holding up a sword to her - only to flee in the other direction as the fragile-looking creature put up a truly terrifying, nightmarish visage in the way of a friendly reminder that she was not to be messed with. Another werepyre learned it very soon in a far more fatal manner. Whoever the woman was - Narandail was rather certain he had seen her before, not long before the battle began -, her form could be considered pretty ... up until she displayed her powers and it turned unnerving kind of uncanny. Pretty but with a nightmarish side. And strange. Definitely strange.
Not willing to distract himself further - it was only because he could do little else but watch what was going on while loading the gun that he had followed her for a while, Narandail turned his attention away from the woman and once more raised his gun, aimed, and fired. The effect was imminent, as the target dropped from feet with a mix of enraged roar and a pained shriek. It was not dead, it was still quite dangerous, but its spine at the waist had been hit - a truly lucky shot - and the beast rendered with a pair of useless limbs. Someone else may end its life . . . firing at it when there were still comparatively healthy werepyres roaming about would have been a waste of time and bullets, seeing how the healthy ones were a significantly larger threat.
About the time it would have taken one to count to twenty or thirty at a moderate pace passed, and the agiroanian gunman had another hulking monster on aim. This one had decided to sprint closer, probably lured in by the sound of the solitary marksman's gun firing. Again, the winged man pulled the trigger, but this time he did not score as lucky hit as he had the last time. He did not miss, that was true, but the bullet only hit the beast's upper arm and punched a marginal hole through its wing-membrane. This kind of injury did more to agitate the monster than to stop it. There was also not enough time to reload the gun before the beast would have managed to scale the vertical wall leading up to his position.
Quickly making the decision - close quarters combat with a werepyre while positioned in a not too convenient spot did not feel like a particularly inviting opportunity - the winged man threw the strap of his gun over his head and one bare shoulder, keeping the weapon in front of himself as if it were a strange kind of handbag rather than slinging it over his back (it would have gotten in the way of his wings during flight, or at the very least proved to be notably more inconvenient than in this arrangement), grabbed his spear from the leaning position it had been stored in with the other hand that was not gripping the gun's barrel, and launched himself into air, much to the frustration of the enraged werepyre clinging to the wall with its hands digging its wicked claws into the available cracks just two yards from where Narandail's feet had been gripping the ledge. Sure, werepyres could fly, too, but the agiroan was lighter and more maneuverable and thusly held the upper hand in air.
Predictably, the creature behind him wanted to give a chase, but by the time the beast had taken to air, the smaller winged being was already a few dozen yards higher up and facing the monstrosity, mighty wingbeats carrying him three feet and a half backwards and up each as the winged man waited. And then his wings snapped first half-shut, then onto his back entirely as he dived - not precisely at the werepyre, but rather aiming to pass over the creature. At the right moment, his spear drew an arc in the air, seemingly barely grazing the beast, but then he was already past the creature and his wings snapped open again as he went over into swift glide.
Despite the briefness and seeming lack of severity in the contact with the winged man's spear, the werepyre first tilted in the air, and then fell, crashing sideways into the ground. It was quite hard to fly when one of your one wing's membrane-panels was just two loose stretches of skin flapping uselessly in the wind, sliced by the spear-tip. The impact did not kill the beast, as it got to its feet a few short moments later, but now, in addition to the unremarkable hole in the creature's wing-membrane that nevertheless produced a steady stream of blood, one of its wings was now hanging limply - when the spear-tip had made it useless for flight, the fall had broken it. And it still looked entirely willing to fight on? Resilient bastard, may it slowly bleed out.
From halfway across the battlefield, an order to gather was roared out; Auroreon, Narandail presumed. With a tilt to be body and momentary slight retracting of his right wing, he made a half circle in air and headed for the voice. Having wings was a massive advantage - where others had to painstakingly crawl across the terrain, he just glided over, significantly faster than a running man, capable of keeping up with even a running horse.
It did not take long for him close in to Auroreon, sweep low and halt one's speed, dropping to ground almost next to Auroreon and immediately setting to reload his gun, wings not folded to the back, but rather threateningly held to his sides, with the wing-thumb-spikes pointing forward and the remainder of his wing-fingers pressed against his wing-arms so that the membranes' span was mostly out of the way of harm.
"Pick up your sword if you don't have some trick up in your sleeve," the winged creature's voice hissed to the mercenary. Was it his place to give orders to others? Probably not, but he felt uncomfortable enough in this particular place even without people standing about seemingly empty-handed and waiting to be attacked. "If you don't have a better plan, I'll take another position with my gun, or at the least move to the air in case those beasts would think of attacking from above; I'm more useful in either place than here on ground."
That was true. Although he could probably impale a Werepyre on one of his wing-spikes with an accurate strike, he felt rather vulnerable on the ground, furthermore so when he could suddenly find himself beneath a flying opponent. Had he not been driven away from his previous position, he probably would not have responded to the call at all.
- He was a somewhat slow runner due to his build, and relatedly not the fastest dodger, and furthermore using his wing-spikes meant putting his wing-membranes pretty much in harm's way, and that was a kind of injury he preferred not to sustain. Wing-membrane injuries, although those tended to heal very quickly, were rather unpleasant. For one, those would hinder his flight or outright anchor him to the ground, for the second those tended to be unproportionally painful and always seemed to bleed profusely, even when small.
The winged man finished loading his gun, and lifted it into firing position, widened eyes flickering from Auroreon to the surroundings, wings every now and then twitching ever so slightly when motion occurred nearby. Werepyres could fly, but yet they tried to break through the meleé-fighters rather than flying overhead and targeting the more harmful gunmen and mages - many of whom would be mostly helpless in close combat - first. Why?
"I wonder why they don't fly when it'd give them obvious edge," the agiroan noted. "It bothers me."
Poor creature indeed... We find one yth who, for whatever reason, is far more intelligent than its brethren, and then we simply brutally kill it off... Granted, said yth had just severely injured three men, two of them most likely fatally, but regardless.
I'll touch up Aemoten's last collab-post a bit (edit: done) and then write something up for Koraakan (edit2: and done - somewhat haphazard post, so let me know if any edits are necessary).
I'll touch up Aemoten's last collab-post a bit (edit: done) and then write something up for Koraakan (edit2: and done - somewhat haphazard post, so let me know if any edits are necessary).
Rather than walking with their body lifted off the ground like insects and for the most part lizards do, yths' proportions make me think of them using their arms to simply pull their body forward over the ground. Throw arms of one side forward, claws pressing into surface, pull body forward across the ground with those arms, throw arms of the other side forward, pull the body forwards, repeat. They could move quite quickly like that, too, I imagine.
It would rather risk facing ... whatever's down there than hope to get loose before Aemoten can hit it again (I figure the room would otherwise look like a decent lot of hiding places with all the beds and tables and relative darkness)? Okay, so it draws to the right and then immediately starts backing towards the stairs and dragging the guard with it... In which case, Aemoten would still continue closing in, but instead of swinging at it, would actually try to stab/ram into it over the guard's shoulder (sharp edge of sword turned upwards, blunt towards the shoulder of the guard), try to cut off the second stuck arm off too if it seems the guard might fall down the stairs along with it (it should be easy enough to reach the arm seeing where it is anchored, and get the blade under it ... the weight of the guard/yth would actually help to sever it, while the yth would have harder time reaching up because it would be essentially hanging by that point).
Hmm... Might refine my post a bit after the detailing is done.
It would rather risk facing ... whatever's down there than hope to get loose before Aemoten can hit it again (I figure the room would otherwise look like a decent lot of hiding places with all the beds and tables and relative darkness)? Okay, so it draws to the right and then immediately starts backing towards the stairs and dragging the guard with it... In which case, Aemoten would still continue closing in, but instead of swinging at it, would actually try to stab/ram into it over the guard's shoulder (sharp edge of sword turned upwards, blunt towards the shoulder of the guard), try to cut off the second stuck arm off too if it seems the guard might fall down the stairs along with it (it should be easy enough to reach the arm seeing where it is anchored, and get the blade under it ... the weight of the guard/yth would actually help to sever it, while the yth would have harder time reaching up because it would be essentially hanging by that point).
Hmm... Might refine my post a bit after the detailing is done.
I didn't assume an yth's arm would be three feet long - I assumed its armspan, the entire distance from the claw-tips of a right hand to the claw-tips of a left hand while the measured pair of arms is spread as wide as it can go, to be three feet... So yeah, I was picturing a much more short-armed - and by extension, only half as mobile - yth.
- An adult yth would have an armspan of ~208 cm, whilst only having the body length of ~152 cm? Interesting proportions for a non-flying creature of this size, and ones that would probably make moving around and balancing somewhat harder. Their arms are positioned attached quite close to one another on the body, right? ...And now I feel somewhat tempted to try sketching an yth, if you don't mind?
Neverteless, moving on... I don't see how Aemoten could have done much better with all the obstacles around, beginning from not hitting any of the guards to the wall on his right and the other people behind him to Olan's halberd, held by the yth, being somewhere in the way. (How did the rightmost guard end up partially under the middle guard when the middle guard fell first? Wouldn't it be the other way around?)
...So we have an yth which is still stuck by one of its right arms, with maybe three quarters of an inch deep and four inches long cut on somewhere on its hind body from Aemoten's first swing at it while it was in air, with shallow cuts on the underside of its upper right arm and top of its middle right arm from Olan's halberd with its middle left arm missing, its two other left arms with flesh sliced off on the outer side near the shoulders, and a shallower long gash somewhere further down the side of its body?
Nothing immediately fatal, yes... Although I've got a feeling that the yth would be losing very large amounts of blood with all those injuries, the missing arm especially - with a relatively large creature such as the yth, a proportionally long limb like that usually has quite significant blood-pressure behind it, amongst other things. (Not to mention blood-vessels of smaller diameter are easier for the body to seal even with the same blood pressure. Earthen creatures who can easily survive losing limbs are small mostly for the aforementioned reasons.)
Is it safe to assume the yth would retreat farther from Aemoten and try to remain facing him rather than try to attack immediately? (Meaning it would move over the guard to its right that it is still stuck to and retreat onto the floor, with the people who were in front of it (remaining halberdiers, Olan) being farther to the right in front of it, Jaelnec being somewhere to the left next to it, the stairs being to the left in front of it, Aemoten being in front of it, some tables and chairs being behind it?
In that case, Aemoten would draw his sword to a low defensive position (so he can block if the creature decides to throw itself at him) and close in again, delivering a much less restricted, essentially a low-horizontal half-circle swing (base of blade higher than tip).
- An adult yth would have an armspan of ~208 cm, whilst only having the body length of ~152 cm? Interesting proportions for a non-flying creature of this size, and ones that would probably make moving around and balancing somewhat harder. Their arms are positioned attached quite close to one another on the body, right? ...And now I feel somewhat tempted to try sketching an yth, if you don't mind?
Neverteless, moving on... I don't see how Aemoten could have done much better with all the obstacles around, beginning from not hitting any of the guards to the wall on his right and the other people behind him to Olan's halberd, held by the yth, being somewhere in the way. (How did the rightmost guard end up partially under the middle guard when the middle guard fell first? Wouldn't it be the other way around?)
...So we have an yth which is still stuck by one of its right arms, with maybe three quarters of an inch deep and four inches long cut on somewhere on its hind body from Aemoten's first swing at it while it was in air, with shallow cuts on the underside of its upper right arm and top of its middle right arm from Olan's halberd with its middle left arm missing, its two other left arms with flesh sliced off on the outer side near the shoulders, and a shallower long gash somewhere further down the side of its body?
Nothing immediately fatal, yes... Although I've got a feeling that the yth would be losing very large amounts of blood with all those injuries, the missing arm especially - with a relatively large creature such as the yth, a proportionally long limb like that usually has quite significant blood-pressure behind it, amongst other things. (Not to mention blood-vessels of smaller diameter are easier for the body to seal even with the same blood pressure. Earthen creatures who can easily survive losing limbs are small mostly for the aforementioned reasons.)
Is it safe to assume the yth would retreat farther from Aemoten and try to remain facing him rather than try to attack immediately? (Meaning it would move over the guard to its right that it is still stuck to and retreat onto the floor, with the people who were in front of it (remaining halberdiers, Olan) being farther to the right in front of it, Jaelnec being somewhere to the left next to it, the stairs being to the left in front of it, Aemoten being in front of it, some tables and chairs being behind it?
In that case, Aemoten would draw his sword to a low defensive position (so he can block if the creature decides to throw itself at him) and close in again, delivering a much less restricted, essentially a low-horizontal half-circle swing (base of blade higher than tip).
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