Sonya grumbled as the heavy pack dug into her shoulders. The bag had several support mechanisms to evenly distribute weight, but when that weight is in the tens of kilograms, things eventually hit a point where it's simply hell to carry it no matter how well the weight might be distributed. She was confident the damn thing weighed almost as much as she herself did, but damned if she wasn't prepared for almost anything.
Tightening her gun belt and grinning at the weight of the ammunition it held, she sighed, suddenly dropping the heavy bag with a loud thump and rummaging through it. The main group was just bumbling around at this point, and she thought it high time to pull her trademark disappearing act and explore the city on her lonesome. The other party members all had their individual skills that made them useful, but she'd grown up in cities like this one. Even if she'd never visited Nurenhaven herself before the Calamity, she had been here almost seventy years ago and remembered with displeasure some of the less amiable inhabitants of the ruin.
Finally finding the map she sought, she turned around looking for a landmark to orient herself- easily finding one in the form of one of the great refineries of Nurenhaven. She actually remembered reading about the extraction and refining process for whale oil, and it had made her more than a little hesitant about using the substance for the next month or so, but in the end practicality had won out. At this point it was a matter of survival, and she'd done far worse things for survival than simply using an immorally harvested substance with incredible versatility. Things she preferred not to think about.
"So if this is the Son's refinery, then..." she turned away from the structure, facing into the the city and towards what would've been its port in past times, "cold storage ought to be that direction. I'd even wager there's a pipeline directly to it." She huffed as she hiked the heavy bag back up, quickly scurrying to the side and into the protection of the shade the walls of a nearby building provided. She looked over at the street, and sure enough a visible series of maintenance points met her eye, and she quickly set off alongside the pipe. The other group seemed not to have noticed her leaving, or they just didn't care at this point. If she was to be honest neither did she, they rarely had any worthwhile ideas in these cities it seemed, at least to her.
After following the pipeline for a while, she'd begun to lose track of time, and muted shouting scattered and broken by the many walls around them jarred her from the monotony of counting manholes. Starting at the noise, she slowed her pace before speeding back up again, winding her way through the labyrinthine buildings towards the sound of the shout.
Seventy years ago, she would've gasped in surprise, but that was seventy years ago and she knew what an Etori'ka was, and that it was a good idea not to cross one, or indeed to even attempt speaking to one. But this particular Desert Butcher -the one in the chains- was much more calm than those she had previous experience with, and she wondered if this was one of the intelligent Etori'ka, and not simply a stomach with weapons. That theory was supported by the other, a male, though she had a hard time telling the two apart since there were no squishy bits specific to one sex she was aware of, but one learned a few things over time.
She elected to watch, but pulled her bow from its carrier and strung the weapon all the same, gently laying an arrow on the string as she observed with intense interest. From the look of things, that Alpha was going to get a nasty surprise soon. Sonya wondered if she should interject and put an arrow through the Alpha's head, it'd let that chained female deal with the other figure down there that was too indistinct to make out the species of, and in return maybe the female wouldn't try to eat her. It was a risk, but she didn't know if she could leave without being seen at this point, she was confident the smaller figure was looking right at her at this moment, and any significant movement would likely give her away- and she had no doubts about what the Alpha would do to her.
Tightening her gun belt and grinning at the weight of the ammunition it held, she sighed, suddenly dropping the heavy bag with a loud thump and rummaging through it. The main group was just bumbling around at this point, and she thought it high time to pull her trademark disappearing act and explore the city on her lonesome. The other party members all had their individual skills that made them useful, but she'd grown up in cities like this one. Even if she'd never visited Nurenhaven herself before the Calamity, she had been here almost seventy years ago and remembered with displeasure some of the less amiable inhabitants of the ruin.
Finally finding the map she sought, she turned around looking for a landmark to orient herself- easily finding one in the form of one of the great refineries of Nurenhaven. She actually remembered reading about the extraction and refining process for whale oil, and it had made her more than a little hesitant about using the substance for the next month or so, but in the end practicality had won out. At this point it was a matter of survival, and she'd done far worse things for survival than simply using an immorally harvested substance with incredible versatility. Things she preferred not to think about.
"So if this is the Son's refinery, then..." she turned away from the structure, facing into the the city and towards what would've been its port in past times, "cold storage ought to be that direction. I'd even wager there's a pipeline directly to it." She huffed as she hiked the heavy bag back up, quickly scurrying to the side and into the protection of the shade the walls of a nearby building provided. She looked over at the street, and sure enough a visible series of maintenance points met her eye, and she quickly set off alongside the pipe. The other group seemed not to have noticed her leaving, or they just didn't care at this point. If she was to be honest neither did she, they rarely had any worthwhile ideas in these cities it seemed, at least to her.
After following the pipeline for a while, she'd begun to lose track of time, and muted shouting scattered and broken by the many walls around them jarred her from the monotony of counting manholes. Starting at the noise, she slowed her pace before speeding back up again, winding her way through the labyrinthine buildings towards the sound of the shout.
Seventy years ago, she would've gasped in surprise, but that was seventy years ago and she knew what an Etori'ka was, and that it was a good idea not to cross one, or indeed to even attempt speaking to one. But this particular Desert Butcher -the one in the chains- was much more calm than those she had previous experience with, and she wondered if this was one of the intelligent Etori'ka, and not simply a stomach with weapons. That theory was supported by the other, a male, though she had a hard time telling the two apart since there were no squishy bits specific to one sex she was aware of, but one learned a few things over time.
She elected to watch, but pulled her bow from its carrier and strung the weapon all the same, gently laying an arrow on the string as she observed with intense interest. From the look of things, that Alpha was going to get a nasty surprise soon. Sonya wondered if she should interject and put an arrow through the Alpha's head, it'd let that chained female deal with the other figure down there that was too indistinct to make out the species of, and in return maybe the female wouldn't try to eat her. It was a risk, but she didn't know if she could leave without being seen at this point, she was confident the smaller figure was looking right at her at this moment, and any significant movement would likely give her away- and she had no doubts about what the Alpha would do to her.
