Zeroth

In Hunting Beasts and Monsters

They don't have much to react to, in my honest opinion. The questions that have been asked of the Mayor are probably the same things that are on everyone's mind, and it'd be repetitive for everyone to ask individually. I vote for moving forward.

In Hunting Beasts and Monsters

I'm liking your posts, but when Kenji goes exploring the town at random, give us a headsup, so that we can tell you what's been waiting for him wherever he's going.

@KoL

I was planning on having him head to the Butcher, then the Tanner, as he's not sure yet whether the monsters are natural like animals or if their meat/hides can be used. After that I was going to send him to the tavern to try and talk to more townspeople for info before he heads back to the Church.

The Jade Stream

As Xu and Xin fought in a rapid fire flurry, the dojo-smasher flexed his abdomen and exhaled deeply whenever one of the other man's blows got through. His defenses didn't stop there--like the other man, and any sensible fighter, there was a thin layer of Qi over his body to act as a shield. Dai Xin's was not so formidable as Xun's, because so much more of his power was being devoted to his attacks, but what little he had was partitioned more efficiently. Rather than simply reinforcing his whole body, he focused on the point of each impact. The moment he realized a blow had gotten past his guard, he changed the direction of his channeling.

His liver. Qi to the upper obliques, to the serratus anterior, and the pectoralis major. Xu's fist struck his body and he felt the impact, the dull thump, but its power did not penetrate through the fortified muscle.

His floating ribs. Qi to the external obliques and abdominals, and the bones themselves. The blow pushed his body, but his skeleton did not break.

His lower jaw. Qi to the neck, not to harden but to strengthen the tendons at their connecting ends, to allow his head to stretch further back than normal as he turned his cheek, deflecting the brunt of the impact.

Dai Xin's own fists won the exchange even as he took these blows and more, and his opponent was forced to back off lest his own shield be shattered. But before he could pursue Xu Lao his partner attacked from the flank. Dai Xin stepped to the side to avoid a driving punch, the dagger's edge gleaming with blood lust. Nam-seon seemed more agile, relying on speed rather than defense, as he ducked under Dai Xin's counter attack and quickly kept attacking, weaving his way into Dai Xin's guard but staying at the mid-range, where the reach of his weapons allowed him to more easily evade any response.

Xu launched himself like a rocket from the trees from the left, Nam-seon on the right with another flanking attack. Dai Xin channeled his defensive power to his forearms, and the offensive power traveled up through his arms, into his shoulders, then into his throat...

Xu Lao's punch ground against his defense, and the tip of Nam-seon's katar practically threw sparks as it drove deeper, eliciting a crackling sound from the Qi shield. Dai Xin's heels ground into the dirt as he was pushed back, both of them drawing closer.

Dai Xin took a deep breath.

Fist of the Sky, Qi Arts.

A tiger's roar could stun a deer with the sheer rumbling force contained in its bass tone.

Dai Xin's roar was like a physical blow, driving Qi-infused air and force from his lungs like a storm gale...

THUNDER CRY.

"HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

In Hunting Beasts and Monsters

Kenji kept his eyes on Maria's as she fondled his weapon--he had no interest in her in that manner, not after seeing what she was capable of and knowing that she still had the potential to be a threat to him and the other Hunters, if she was indeed manipulating them. When she pushed him away he stumbled back, given her supernatural strength, but still he calmly took in the information she presented.

@KoL"Yeah, that's right, isn't it--we're not required to make the donations. The guy you call Sack-o-Bones just implied it would somehow make our lives here easier." he said, but now he was starting to think more to himself rather than speak to her directly. "So it's really just for us to turn in the kills and get money to make a living. But that begs another question--just what would the Absolute's priest want with the dismembered corpses of the Absolute's servants?" He turned and started walking away, as it was obvious Maria didn't have any more interest in conversing with him. He had just been speaking his thoughts aloud. He headed towards Highball now.

...If the Hunters and the Absolute are in opposition...maybe this is how they recoup their losses. This place is straight out of the darkest kinds of fantasy. It would not surprise me at all to think that, through some kind of twisted magic or some such, creatures like the God Hand could be resurrected after death. Especially by a priest-class character. So maybe the reason he offers us money for the monster parts is because he then gets to Frankenstein them back together and send them back out. If that's the case, then in the end the Hunters could never accomplish anything worthwhile for this world. Every enemy they slay will simply return.

So now I want to know if there are other ways to make money off these beasts besides turning them in to the Church.

As he stopped in front of Highball, he gestured with his spear towards the town around them.

@Lugubrious"If you're still interested in working together, I'm going to investigate around town before I head back to the Church." he told her. Seeing the head on the cobblestones at her feet, he wondered what was up with that--he hadn't seen her fight, but nor had he seen Maria toss it to her earlier. "If you're not gonna take that, I will."

The Jade Stream

@PKMNB0YI'm a fan of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, I love weird.

Also if any of you are interested in reading comics/manga and the like that have a similar feel to this RP, might I suggest "Marchen: The Embodiment of Tales?" It's a Korean work (translated via power of the internet, of course) that I've gotten into recently and really enjoyed.

The Jade Stream

Dai Xin's Qi flared explosively as he too became curious as to how strong these two were. They both used weapons of a sort; one wore protection for his hands, implying a great deal of strength but a neglected conditioning of his knuckles, and the katars of the other were somewhat unusual though Dai Xin had at least heard of them. They were basically a dagger intended to deliver powerful stabs by using a punch, but they could also be used to slash. They were somewhat deceptive; when dodging a punch one could use the length of the arm to predict the opponent's range, but the katars added to that length without requiring the same kind of leveraging that something like a sword or staff did.

"Yes, let us begin!"

With the Compression Step, the red head leaped at blinding speed, raising one leg up high until he was practically doing a vertical split. Qi surged up the limb until it cloaked his heel, trailing the path of his hamstring--the tendon used to flex the leg.

"Helm Splitting Axe!"

The kick wasn't aimed at one of the men, but the branch they were standing on. Dai Xin shattered it at the center, the impact eliciting a crack even from its growth point at the tree, and if the two didn't move quickly they would be dumped into the open air without a foot-hold to push off from. Dai Xin himself went straight down, falling more swiftly with the impact of his kick and landing directly below in a low crouch. He placed the palm of one hand on the ground, and again used the Compression Step technique--but to make up for the less than ideal position of his current stance, the focus was instead within his palm. A stepping technique, used with a palm?

Still, with a springlike flex of the elbow he propelled himself into the air, and appeared in front of Xu Lao.

"Asura's Wrathful Fists!"

The punches were relatively basic, but intended as a combination of strikes--like the image of a six-armed god of war, Dai Xin let loose a barrage of blows...

The Jade Stream

Going to admit I'm a little stuck. ^^; Torako's reveal of her competency would mean she'd probably pretty effortlessly take out a single guy... or even multiple guys, but I don't want to completely ruin the fight.

@VitaVitaAR

Nah, it'd be awesome. Maybe let the guy establish himself as competent with a blade, then just bisect him in the blink of an eye.

Martial arts stories are at their best when two masters/equally skilled opponents go at it, and when bad guys get utterly rekt.

Warriors of Hyrule [A Fantasy Drama Odyssey]

Seeker yawned, as he found all the back and forth about the philosophy of killing vs sparing and the Gerudo fellow's remarks on Hylian prejudice to be extremely boring.

"Well, if nobody wants to agree on anything, let's just go around." he said. "This field is huge. We can easily take a long detour out of their line of sight. Of course, that'll take hours." He shrugged and lounged back in the saddle again, closing his eyes. "Either charge through and crack some skulls, or let criminals decide what we pay to use our own roads, or waste time to avoid getting our hands dirty. No point yammering about it all day."

Dice

Once again making sure the house was locked up and he had his spare key in his pocket, Mark set off down the sidewalk, not really knowing what his destination should be. He could try the fast food places--but for one thing that required him to deal with people on a daily basis, and for another thing it was the quintessential "loser" job for anyone who wasn't in high school, and even then. If he absolutely had to have a job to get his parents off his back, he might try it, but he would damn well exhaust every other option.

Graphic Design was certainly not panning out. In this economy people needed the essential services, not luxuries like art. Any company that needed a logo would just get one of their employees' nephews who was "a good drawer" or some shit to doodle up something they could work with for pennies off the buck. Newspapers and magazines would just throw together whatever layout they thought looked nice; who needed a degree to slap some pictures and text on a sheet of paper?

He'd had a free ride to college thanks to his scholarships, but damn it all if he didn't want a refund for that goddamned degree.

Anyway, he would have to try something outside his "field," even though it wasn't really like he had a place in it anyway. He could try one of those plazas with a bunch of little shops in it, maybe a cell phone provider or something. He knew where one of those was--it had a bookstore in it he had frequented a lot while he was in college. He decided to cut through the park and take a shortcut, enjoy the scenery. Who knew, maybe some girls would be jogging or walking their dogs or something and he could work on some of these other quests...

Yeah, like he had that in him. To just talk to some girl he didn't even know, much less outright lie to her just for the sake of supernatural power.

As he stepped onto one of the pathways that meandered around the park, he slowed down so as not to run into a group of three teens who struck him as the troublesome types. He watched them for a moment, as they seemed to have a purpose to their steps. It looked like they were headed for some skinny kid sitting on the swings by himself, and from their expressions Mark figured something was about to go down.

Oh boy, wonder what possible stereotypical situation could play out here. Time to steal some lunch money? No, it's not a school day. Maybe someone's baby-momma got herself a new man. No, you know what, let's be open minded. It could be a lover's quarrel, but now someone's leaked it off the down-low and they have to break it off to keep their homophobic families from disowning them.

Dice

"Hm. Interesting that your first example is that someone uses the dice to kill...and that your second discourages the spread of this power." Mark opened the app as the rolled die faded out of existence. It seemed like X probably anticipated that there would be some less-than-savory individuals out there who would use the dice to break laws or get what they wanted by force. Honestly, he should probably expect such from most other people, even if the Players were only a small group. It was a typical Lord of the Flies scenario. When given any form of true freedom or power, most human beings would devolve and give in to their base nature.

He would have to monitor himself closely. He knew he was ambitious, and he knew he was overly judgmental of others. He knew he found it easier to find someone's flaws than their good points. Probably because he had spent more time in realms of idealistic fiction than in reality. But that would be his inspiration, rather than his damnation. After all, one of the most influential phrases in the stories...

"With great power, comes great responsibility."

He decided to put 12 points into Agility, and 1 into Strength. That would be enough for now--at this stage of the game, when he was still figuring things out, it might be better to avoid conflict rather than go looking for it. To do that he'd need to be able to move quickly and get away if he was attacked, or get somewhere safe if the city started tearing itself apart as Players began causing chaos.

After doing this, he made a short trip around the house, making sure all the doors were locked and all the windows closed. It didn't seem like there was any kind of tracking function on the app, so Players probably would not know each others' locations or identities, but best to play it safe. He took his phone with him into the bathroom and put it on the counter--face down again, even though he knew that apparently didn't do anything.

"I'm assuming you're not a weirdo, X, so just for the sake of having the app nearby my phone is probably not going to be out of reach from now on." he said, before disrobing and climbing into the shower. Fifteen minutes later he got out, went about the usual routine, and threw on a pair of blue jeans and a forest green, long sleeved shirt. After tying the laces of his black sneakers, he grabbed his gray zip-hoodie and put his phone in the inside breast pocket; if he completed a quest, he didn't want the dice or the light to appear out of nowhere. Once he zipped up the coat, hopefully no one would be able to see the shine and the dice would spawn right there in the pocket.

Now, where to actually go...He could walk around town and look for job applications again. He hadn't had any luck with the last two dozen he'd tried, but now that he had the dice...