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OOC Topic.
Refer to this for the storyline, character sheets and whatever other OOC banter one may be seeking.

IC:

The Cursed Piper climbed the hill, the cold wind whipping at his face. His pulled-back hair flapping in the gale. Dusk was fast upon him and he had no intention of going to sleep hungry tonight. That explained why he had spent the whole day hunting a single deer. Tracking, following, running, hiding, aiming. To a man who wasn't used to it, it would be so frustrating, they would give up after the first hour. It was bloody cold and he'd lost about 15 shots during the day. It was almost as if the fucking animal was playing with him.
But Terrence was calm, collected and so used to the bullshit of Earth in it's stone-age days.

That's what it was like now, the stone-age. The world was a fetus, struggling to not grow into a state of retardation. It appeared it was facing an uphill battle. Terrence wasn't out to fight for the world anymore, he'd pissed away all those dreams with bad decisions and total failure. Now, all he wanted was to go about his way. It didn't matter to him anymore, he'd be long dead before anything significant changed. Dreams were the possession of a rich man, and nobody was rich anymore.

But now. Terrence pushed every thought to the back of his mind. He had a clear shot, the deer was momentarily distracted by something. Whatever it was, Terrence didn't give two shits about, his survival was top priority.
He took a deep breath, calibrated the shot once more, he knew he was being too careful, anymore hesitation and he'd lose it.
A flinch!
CRACK!
The shot resounded throughout the shell of a city he was currently in. He'd missed the vital spot.
"Fuck!" He exclaimed loudly as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and ran down the small hill.

He found the sorry beast writhing in it's own blood, squealing.
Terrence nearly shed a tear, but his wells had gone dry. He unslung his gun from his shoulder and aimed it at the Deer's temple. He looked to the sky, he couldn't bear to watch this. Deep down, underneath all of it, he was still human and he felt insufferable guilt at having to make this poor creature suffer. But he was destined for hell, sins of the past had made sure of it.
His voice came out in a white cloud, whispering on the wind, if his eyes could shed no tears, his words surely could. "I'm so sorry...this world isn't meant for you or I. I'll follow soon enough."

He spent the rest of the light, dragging the beasts carcass into an old house, dilapidated and crumbling as it was, it provided decent shelter. He spent the rest of the night building a fire, cooking the meat, subsequently eating it and then carving up the body of the beast to salt and preserve for later meals.

Tired eyes woke up to the dull sun the next morning. He'd barely slept three hours, but he was often like that. Nightmares plagued his sleep and invaded his serenity. But he was thankful for the dull glare of the sun. It wasn't harsh, but it served as a waking for him. It was so weird, it was as though the sun itself was pissed off at the earth and would only shed enough light to keep the miserable rock afloat. The wind, the cold, it also seemed to become harsher as well. It whipped at faces and tossed hair about with a venomous spite. But if you were hard enough, you kept going, you faced the weather with all your might and you told mother nature to fucking suck it.
That was the life...meaning specifically, it was the only one could live without bending over and taking it up the ass.

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When the missiles hit she did what those around her did: she ran. With the few that had survived the first attack, they headed away from the burning cities and towards rural areas. They were hit just as bad and fell to the same ruins, but for a time, however short, she had the basic necessities to get by. It wasn’t long before the woodlands began to bleed just as heavily as the cities. Everything began to merge – the animals fled to the city as their homes were invaded; the woodland began to dwindle as panic and greed reigned. It was human nature that was the final blow, at least to Sara. As people panicked and turned on each other, the cycle began. She set up camp, moved on, found another place and waited for the same strains on the environment to take hold. Before long, she didn’t have to wait. The world as she once knew it was well and truly gone. There was no pretending, no point trying to wish it different.

But there was something, no matter how faint in her mind, that stopped her placing her gun to her temple. Cowardice, she had once thought in a dark hour. What other excuse could there be? She was not foolish enough to think there would be a change – that her world could be reclaimed – yet she continued to trudge her way through desolate landscapes, foraging and hunting in a place where there were no friends but guarded whispers, and that was only when she had the misfortune of actually having a run in with other humans. Humans. She didn’t think anyone deserved the title anymore; there was no humanity left from what she had seen on her travels. In a place where any advantage would be taken without question, the victims and culprits became one in the same; another vicious cycle starting that was damn near impossible to stop. How could you stop a means of survival?

She had never lingered in the cities for long; there was something she couldn’t trust about a place that was so obviously in ruins. It may have been just as desolate outside the city, but those places had never played host to a mass of people; they were not meant to house human interaction. Cities were built on such things. These thoughts plagued her mind as she crossed into the city limits; her assumption was based on the buildings coming into view, the closest things to ruins she had seen before The Shit Hit The Fan, as she had not-so-affectionately termed it.

With another destination behind her that had ended in conflict, she would not miss having to fend off overzealous hunters that persisted in dropping on ‘her’ patch. It was odd, thinking of it as such. With no prospect of owning anything, putting a claim to a place seemed somewhat normal, and it made her defensive. They had trampled into her ‘home’, placed their claim and it had come down to a near showdown. Sure, they were big men and the odds were against her, but with a little intimidation – with the help of her gun – they had moved along with little more than a few jibes. But even when they had left, she hadn’t felt comfortable. The place was no longer safe; it was no longer hers.

The sun was almost up, giving a faint glow to the buildings that were still standing. She came to a stop between two towers of brickwork, a narrow alleyway carved between them. A glimpse of movement and a rustle amongst the rubble caught her attention. Reaching behind her back, she pulled out her handgun; there was no way she could make the shot from so far away, but as she had that animal cornered it didn’t have any place to run. Edging forward, she kept her movements steady and crept into the alleyway. It wasn’t quite her usual hunting technique – it was easier to set traps than to go running after it – but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

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Stupid people. Bea was glad she didn't have to deal with them anymore. Knowing them, they'd probably eradicated themselves completely by now. For about 50 years she had been living as a hermit in the forest and hadn't talked to another living soul for about 30 years save for her husband who was now dead. Every once in a while a hunter or trespasser could be seen but he was chased away by Jack III, her dog who was as loyal to her as she was to him. Bea found Jack III after John died and, although she was not much of an animal lover, he grew on her. John had always been the one to keep pets although he wasn't very original with names. They had had two Gretas and two Jacks while he was still alive and Bea decided to keep up the tradition when she found poor Jack III whimpering alone, cold, and hungry. He was now her only friend.

Bea preferred the dog over people anytime, however. True, she loved John and held fast to that, but other than him there had never been any other people in her life. Strangely enough, she was born an average child with four siblings in a big house and had never wanted for anything. Middle class family with friends in high places, Beatrice had been well raised. She had been one of the few females to go to law school where she had met John. But after seeing how truly awful human beings can be she just couldn't go on. John, being a supportive husband decided to buy a small cottage in the woods where Bea could live and have a garden and be happy while he would work in the city and come home on weekends. That didn't last long as he also sought the tranquility of the woods and the open heart of his wife. Retiring early, they had lived together and alone for around 30 years. But then again, who was keeping time?

It was quite a fairytale for them both. Occasionally family members would stop by but that eventually dwindled to a point where they just didn't bother. Bea never left the property whereas John would occasionally go down to a local bar or do a bit of grocery shopping when supplies were low in the winter. Selling their apartment from the city had supplied them with enough money to get them by, but they mostly lived off of nature or the rubbish that people would abandon. Such wasteful creatures.

Poor John had died a few years before the destruction of the human race. Bea wished she had, too. To this day, she still has no idea of what had actually happened. All she knows is it was winter time, the snow was falling, and it was the middle of the night. Hearing a loud crashing sound, as if every explosion possible was happening at that very moment, she hid under her bed with Jack III and he protected her. Waking up the next morning, she found that she didn't need protecting because her home, in fact the entire property, hadn't been touched. So what had happened? She honestly just assumed that the stupid people had destroyed themselves. Anyone could see it coming.

She went on living as she always had, tending to her garden, fishing, and walking in the tranquility of her forest. Sometimes she would talk to John even though he wouldn't talk back. She would tell him her thoughts and talk about something Jack III had done that day. Her life was simple, peaceful, and she liked it this way. Beatrice had cut herself off from the outside world and therefore reaped the benefit of being alive and well.

"John, you better be savin' me a place up there. I'm gunna die soon I hope. No, no, I won't be killin' maself so don't be thinkin' such horrible things. But I miss you. Jack III is company enough but it's silly for me to be talkin' to a damned dog. So I'll just keep on talkin' to you. No, them poacher's haven't been comin' round for some time now. What do I think happened? Well you damned well know what I think. What?! Leave?! John John John, you know I can't do that. I'm not gunna go see what happened. No, I'm not curious to know. What them people do with their pointless lives I don't want no part of. Maybe YOU can go look for me. You think sumthin' really bad happened? Well so do I but you don't see me wantin' to know about it. It's been nearin' 15 years since whatever happened happened and I haven't seen a soul since not even just walkin'. But I don't WANT to see nobody. I haven't seen you in 18 years. 19 years come this winter when our star is nearin' the part of the sky where the big tree stands out among the smaller ones. John, why'd you have to go? 19 years of this hell, without you. No, we are not talking about this anymore. I'm gonna go take Jack III for a walk."

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LiZi wuz hurr. (Don't you just HATE gangster talk?)

Kilana had sat there leaning back against a wall. She didn't know what was happening anymore, her whole life was in ruins, her husband and son were dead, her unborn child, miscarried in the first few days after the disaster. She was alone, then and now, her home desolate and empty as her screams had echoed through, wishing for this pain to stop. She had delivered her child herself, five months pregnant and this had to happen. She wished that she could have saved the little girl, but what use could she be? She knew nothing about medicine.

She leant her head in her hands, crying, wishing that it would all stop. She had managed to survive so far, luck mainly she put it down to. She eat anything that she came across that was edible, that explains the reason why she didn't have anything more than a size six dress hung over her starting to grow seriously skeletal frame.

"Why does this have to happen Tate?" she asked, looking up to the clouded sky, she knew that it was futile, there was nothing after death, but she always felt the comforting embrace of her husband whenever she considered killing herself.

She was at the top of an apartment building which was half destroyed, she was at the top of what was left. Tears were falling freely down her cheeks. She didn't want to die, but thought it was the only way, she had nothing left, it wasn't like she could ever have another child to replace the one that she had buried in her back yard with nothing more than a stone from the garden and the name "baby" on it.

She clambered over the edge of the broken wall and sat on the edge, singing as her voice carried throughout the city, broken and desolate as the area around her. She didn't feel anybody would come to her, to help or care. She needed love and compassion, not this desolation she had left in her soul.

It had taken a simple glitch in how electronic devices stored the date, DATE of all god dam things, to bring the wraith of god to the entire world. This wraith, in a loud crack as every explosive device with a timer went off in the darkness of night, every hour as the stroke of midnight made its vengeful smash in each region, in each timezone, one by one, until the world was nothing but ruin.

It ruined so much, as the streets of the cities, vast pasture land, forests, deserts, ponds and waterways, became ruin as the blasts came down. Nuclear winter would slowly claim anything else that wasn't destroyed in the initial onslaught, as the magic of humanity turned on the very race that tamed it, all over the time of the day.

This wraith would steal any chance that Ashely had to be human. The explosions and the fallout afterwards would have stolen the humanities of everyone eventually, but Ashley Hudson was never human to start with, in that she never had the chance to be human, to feel and live as a human. She only had three years of recallable memory of a time when she was happy, loved, and had all the potential of the world behind her.

When the simple glitch struck the planet, she was only six years old.

The radiation of the fallout would claim her parents, for they didn't die from the initial strike, but afterwards when the results of uranium fission would eat their insides. Ashley was very lucky to be alive.

The live of living in this new age, being among the youngest of the survivors, was her nature, mistaking the putrid existence with how people were meant to live.

So how her tale begins.

The woodlands where cold as they usually were. The sun being blocked by the large unnatural clouds and being so darn of a tease. Ashley was by a bush of sorts, chopping and nibbling on the leaves of it. She had eaten on this sort of plant in the past and knew it to not be poisoned. One had to eat after all.

The day before she had heard gunfire, a sound she was accustomed to, and didn't frighten her at all once she knew it wasn't aimed at her. She didn't think much on it, a hunter chasing a creature to eat, or a random moron that stepped on another's turf, take your guess.

She walked out from her spot, her thin frame coming out of the brush and her long, messy hair slumped down her shoulders, thinned from the lack of nutrients rising out and walked onward. What she followed was the smell of fire, as fire meant settlement, and settlement meant people.

Strange, she wasn't afraid of others, through she should be, as many of the older adults were, but she wasn't, and took joy out if even the scariest of interactions with them.

What she found was signs of a settlement indeed. An abandoned shack with traces of a nearby fire, recently lit. She made her way to the house, clutched onto her pants, three sizes too large and gray, like her rags of a shirt. She stopped short when she saw what she thought was an older man, scared from the years of having to survive in this world. Her green eyes went wide, somehow frozen in her actions and thought...

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Silivalne Cromine Ichacon

Mana-Mechs Why join one thread when you can join an entire universe?

http://roleplayerguild.com/f8/colony...averine-27480/ Get stuck in space!

The wind strangley lacked it's usual venom this morning. It made the morning much easier to progress through. But, with a blessing came a curse. Terrence pulled his rifle down from his shoulder and cradled it in his hands, ready to put a heavy slug into anything that might cross his path. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this kind of paranoia. He guessed it was about as long as since he'd had proper sentient company.

He remember the last person he'd traveled with. He remembered their last moments as he was torn from the earth by a rifle bullet exploding out the back of his throat. As it had turned out, he'd only wanted to kill Terrence so he could take his food, his weapon and his clothes. But hell hath no fury like a man scorned for survival. He struck him down with impunity and never looked back since. The new world turned men to steel...but at a terrible cost.

Terrence had little humanity left, only his pity for the poor creature he had wounded, left to live out it's last moments in agony. Who was he to cause that pain upon the creature? Although, the irony there was that he'd defend himself if anyone were to argue whether or not it was his right to kill and eat the creature. But from that, he would not back down. His killings were far more humane than whatever life it had lived. As it was, two days worth of rations was all it had on it. The poor beast was withered and scrawny.

Terrence stopped to look around himself, to take one last fleeting glance at the city. He stopped in awe at the sight. Was that...human? Terrence couldn't tell. This is it...I've gone mad.
His first response was to raise his weapon, aiming through to scope, straight at a vital spot. But he had other motives, with the scopes magnified eye, it revealed that she indeed was human, but horribly emaciated.
Alright, maybe I'm not insane...but...I don't know what I am anymore.

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A sigh escaped pale lips, green eyes darting frantically from one place to another. She was searching; she was always searching. That fateful day life was wiped out... Ines' thoughts faded as long delicate looking fingers touched her neck. A silver chain, an eternal circle linked to it in the form of a ring. Hadn't he promised to stay with her always? No one could have predicted this. She could still see the clouds that rose, a mushroom. Every major city, every city full of life had been wiped out in an instant. There had been no where to run, no time to run and hide. he had been in London, he had been one of the first to be hit. Since then she hadn't come across a single life. At times she asked herself if she was the final one on this deserted planet, but she knew she couldn't be. There were signs that people had walked her path before her, besides why would someone bomb every major city if they weren't going to live on themselves? They had created a darker place inside the beauty that had once been.

She began to walk again, legs pushing through the pain. When had she last eaten? When had she last slept? No she couldn't, she could only continue walking. The night had swallowed her, allowing her to move unnoticed. The world had forgotten her, death had forgotten her. What could one do when one had nothing? Money was worthless, having a home was worthless when there was no one she share it with, memories faded and the past could never come back. There was only one thing to do and that was move on, always move and never look back. It was survival, nothing more, nothing less. She tucked a stray flyaway behind her ear pulling the backpack higher up, trying to ease the burning even if it wasn't for long. She had walked for hours on end. Ines carried only what she needed; fruit, knife, warmth, lighter. It was a burden she bared alone and perhaps she would remain alone for the rest of her days. Whoever remained... They were the last generation.

The world was frozen in it's sorry. Everything had just stopped, except for those few that were forced to continue. Life was hard, harder than anything could be. School was now a fairytale, friends and family were a myth that may or maynot have been true. The sun rose, the sun set, each day no different to the last. Time was no longer recorded, it stood still on the 31st December at 23:59. If she was lucky this would just be a dream, but her heart knew otherwise. She couldn't sleep without remembering their faces, seeing the cloud and the dead she had passed, whole families killed, skeletons holding each other in death. she did not wish the death on herself, but feeling nothing, having nothing was torture. As the day began to dawn there was another sigh. Was it a new beginning from today or just another end to something that was?

Ashley froze as the man rose his rifle in her direction. She was clearly in its scope, and she could see that he was nervous as well, with good reason likely, but still nervous.

To save herself, she had to force words from her lips, to convince him that she wasn't a threat. How she would talk she wasn't sure. Speech was a human thing, and she wasn't really human, and never had been. Still, she wasn't interested in death today. This was the only world she knew, and she wasn't as sad about the demise of the planet as others were, the older ones.

"D-don't... p-pleeeezz, d-don't k-k-kill... m-m-e," she stammered out of her tortured lips. Tears slowly made there way down her cheeks from her eyes, still not dry from past weepings. She slowly raised her hands, palms facing forward, over her shoulders, a gesture she learned meant "non-threatening" from dealing with other people.

Not all people were evil, and not all people lost their humanity during Y2K, this she knew as she walked around the remains of the planet. A few people gave her food for feeling sorrow for her, and some simply kept her company until either a horribly mutated creature, another human, or the radiation, killed them, and Ashley would be alone again. For those few, their humanity was a comfort to her, even if she never had it herself to give back.

Her green eyes were still wide, her black matted hair at her sides, very still and entangled, as she seldom moved in her fear for her life. She wanted to live, she had the drive to live. That fire, even if many couldn't understand it, existed in her eyes. This broken world was the only one she knew about, almost the way it always was.

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Silivalne Cromine Ichacon

Mana-Mechs Why join one thread when you can join an entire universe?

http://roleplayerguild.com/f8/colony...averine-27480/ Get stuck in space!

Terrence quivered under the weight of her words, laced with pleading and fear. He raised his rifle, he was taking no life today. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself and his heartbeat.
He didn't sling the gun back on his shoulder though, habit had a way of keeping him wary.
But this woman looked in a terrible state, he could see this woman need food, but what if her outward appearance was a guise, something to throw him off his guard so she could slit his throat and leave him for dead.
No way...I've come too far to die now.

He slowly approached her, his gun aimed at her waist height. "I'm not lowering this. Take some food from my bag and eat it. If you try anything funny, I'll blow you away."
Terrence spoke as he threw his bag down onto the ground, his rifle still trained on her.
His voice was aged, raspy and coarse. Deep in his age, carrying with it a rugged-ness matched only by himself. His voice and his eyes painted the perfect picture of a warrior, hardened by his world.

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Bea did exactly what she said she would do and took Jack III for a walk. This was a daily ritual between the two and he knew exactly where to go and what to do in the hour or two that they were gone. Normally, they stayed within the confines of the main property. There was a high fence surrounding her house and her garden and within it all of her belongings stayed. The gate to the outer property had five locks on it and had been guarded by every Jack and Greta throughout the years. John had wanted to make sure his Beatrice was safe.

She took out her ring of keys and unlocked each one carefully, taking her time for she was in no hurry. Exiting the main gate, she walked into the forest of trees which was also owned by her and John. The larger section of property went on for miles but only had a small stone wall separating it from the rest of the world. John had named it "Bea's Paradise" trying to be romantic but she referred to it as "Our Paradise." The lines of the territory were curved and angular because they were leftover from the colonial days when they divided property by landmarks. This worked well for her because she didn't know how to use a compass and didn't feel like learning how to anytime soon.

If she kept walking straight, she would hit a river and she could follow that all the way down to the big boulder which was the corner of her property. After that she would enter a birch forest and walk relatively straight until she caught sight of the meadow where she and John would have picnics together. Every Sunday. Today, however, she decided that Jack III and she would walk the opposite direction, which was towards the town, but she of course would stop at the Big Bear's den. Big Bear is the reason they had to put up the big fence around the house. After that, Big Bear hadn't bothered them and they had made a sort of truce whereas they wouldn't go on his side of the property and he wouldn't tear the fence down. Sadly, Big Bear died a few years back and her cubs had all moved on to different areas so Bea hadn't seen many bears around for a while.

So she and Jack went for their daily walk. She with nothing but a bottle of water and a walking stick which John had made for her. These days it was acting more like a cane, for her joints ached and her hands didn't work as they used to. One of these days she was going to die and no one would be around to take care of Jack III but he would die soon too. In fact, he had lived unnaturally long for a dog, going on 18 years. She looked at him suddenly and saw not the sprite little puppy he once was, but the old, sluggish dog he had become. He was overweight and while he did smile back at her, there was a sadness in his eyes. It is true that if she had lived in the city she probably would have been put down by a vet. However, because they lived out here, she couldn't bear the thought of being the one to put him down, and although sometimes he whelped in pain trying to lay down, she could only go to him and stroke his shaggy coat and say nice things to him with her soothing voice.

He returned the favor. On those days where she was too stiff to get out of bed, he would come to her and snuggle closely. He would keep her warm in the winter and give her comfort when she was reading old letters from John. The two were made for each other, she and Jack III. Now it seemed as if they were in a race, who would die first. Bea actually hoped that they would die together and meet John up in heaven and she would tell him "look here John, look what I brought you. Another Jack. Damned dog kept me up half the night and I had to feed 'im and clean 'im. That's supposed to be your job, John. Well, no matter now I guess." Jack III would join the Greta's and other Jack's and she and John could live in their little cottage in the sky, together for eternity. Bea knew that would all come in good time and she shouldn't rush it. Heaven was worth the wait.

Instead, she charged on and lived. Lived for Jack, lived for John, and lived for their memories together. That was about the only thing for which she was sentimental about. She could look a dieing man in the eye and tell him to buck up and be a man. She could gut a fish, trap a rabbit, and patch a roof. She could get on her old, knotted knees and plant row after row of vegetables in the hot sun. But if you mentioned John, it's quite possible she would fall to the floor and weep.

Walking with Jack III she remained silent. John hadn't come with them on the walk and instead stayed home guarding the place from strangers. Bea truly believed that his ghost was with her and that they would be together forever. Walking along, Jack III would leave every now and then to do his business and she would slow down her pace so that he could catch up easier. She wouldn't altogether stop for if she did Jack III would realize how old he was and once a person realizes their age it all goes downhill. Jack III was an innocent and should remain ignorant even though she could not. They finally reached Big Bear's den and sat down, taking a break from their trek. Taking out her water, she drank deeply and leaned against a part of the cave. Jack went off to play with a stick. Bea fell asleep in the solace of her paradise and dreamed of heaven.

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LiZi wuz hurr. (Don't you just HATE gangster talk?)