Athol

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

Well this is less good. She thought as she closed with an orc who’d snatched up a nasty looking club to go with his sword. She’d encountered orcs who’d been dosed with whatever the green fog was before and it had not been fun.

Iroryn lashed out with a back-to-back Tempest slashes, throwing biting arcs of super cold wind into the attacker’s face. The first caught him across the mouth, and the orc staggered and coughed as his mouth and lungs were subjected to a brief bout of burning cold; however he retained enough awareness to throw his weapons up in front of his face to dissipate Iroryn’s second attack against the body of his weapons.

Though her attacks weren’t as effective as she’d hoped, they still managed to open up a bit of a hole for her to work with as the two of them clashed. She opened with a powerful thrust that the orc almost missed, but just managed to parry in time; instead of running him through, all Iroryn manged was a shallow slash along his left side. Dodging his counter attack, she swore as she saw the cut she’d just made immediately start to heal itself. As she circled wide, the orc looked down at his rapidly healing wound and laughed.

Moving as rapidly as the loose sand under foot would let her, she continued to circle the orc. ”Watch yourselves,” She called out between breaths. ”They’ve got a quick heal!” The orc rushed her, and she quickly found herself on the defensive, though fortunately the orc’s decision to use two weapons had halved his striking power, though thanks to the shaman, that was still rather significant.

Focusing on dodges and parries for the moment, she did her best to play ‘keep away’ while she waited for the right moment; unfortunately that was easier said than done, as the orc obviously realized what she was doing and began to press her harder. Giving ground back towards the other Irregulars, she felt a larger depression in the sand beneath her feet, and ‘stumbled’ just as the orc committed to a powerful double overhead strike. Rolling to the side, she thrust hard into the orc’s torso, burying several inches of blade between his ribs before hitting him with a blast of Ice Shock along the blade.

He screamed as the ice magic froze and tore at his insides while Iroryn yanked her blade free. Half-blinded by pain, he rounded on her and his scream became an enraged roar as she watched, what should have been a grievous wound, heal with alarming speed. She lashed out with a flurry of wicked Ice Shock backed strikes, and while the orc was able block her physical blade, he still took the brunt of the magical blasts to his head and face.

Eyes starting to freeze over and the cold searing his lungs, he staggered about, swinging wildly, unable to clearly see around himself. She backed off for a moment to catch her breath before charging back in. This time he never saw her coming as she drove her blade into his chest up to the hilt; as the orc toppled backwards, she put a boot to his chest and heaved, yanking the blade free. Blood gushed from the wound as she came in again, hacking once, twice, three times, at the orcs neck, finally beheading him.

Splattered in blood, her sword dripping, she looked for the next opponent.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

She’d always been alight sleeper, so when Alm’s cry on ‘Orcs!’ reached her, her eye snapped open and she scrambled to her feet. It hadn’t been the most restful sleep, but that was because she’d slept in her armour; a prudent thing to do if possible when in lands as hostile as the desert. As Shion’s Flare lit the night she took stock of their attackers and grimaced slightly, two to one odds wasn’t that bad, but still not fantastic. Her attention was focused on the archers and the mage; up close any orc was extremely dangerous, but most favoured raw power over skill, so keeping out of their way wasn’t too hard…so long as one could avoid getting blindsided by and arrow or a spell.

Leaving her sword sheathed for the moment, she pulled her grimoire and flicked it open, her thumb finding the right page with ease. Most mages needed finding spells woven into their grimores to save from hunting for the right page during heated moments; Iroryn had simply transcribed them enough times to have everything in one place. Book in one hand, she raised the other sharply as wisps of cold air gathered at her palm while her lips moved silently as she recited the spell; moments later a four inch long, razor sharp, piece of ice shot out towards the orcish archers. Two of them were paying attention, and as the light erupted, they were nocking arrows as they kept their eyes on the party so when her spell launched they saw it coming and moved; the third wasn’t so smart. Distracted by the light, he was still staring at the sky when the shard buried itself into his chest. The orc made a surprised grunt before collapsing like a puppet that’d had it’s strings cut.

She heard an unfamiliar sound and turned slightly to see Kaeciel firing that repeating crossbow of his out of the corner of her eye. Moments later the arrows came down, killing one and wounding two more. Smiling at that, she traded her grimorie for her blade and moved forward to support Lady Olivia and Alm as the orcs closed. Focusing on her blade, she let loose with a Tempest slash; though the orcs were still too far out to be affected by the cold blast, it had the side-affect of throwing a bunch of sand and dust up in their faces as they rushed the Irregulars.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

^@Milim

Stupid, bigoted ass-hat… She thought grumpily. In one way she was surprised a comment like that still got to her, it’s not like she didn’t hear it on a regular basis or anything, maybe it was just that she thought being out here in the desert would let her get away from that kind of shit; on the other hand she was proud of herself for not simply decking Stephan, or blasting him with ice, maybe she was maturing as she got older. Laughing softly to herself as she lent against her gear with her eyes closed, she yawned and considered having a nap while she waited.

That idea, however, was interrupted as she felt someone approach. A young female voice asked her how she’d cooled the water skins, and Iroryn opened her eyes to find herself looking up at Eris. ”You’re Eris right?” She asked, sitting up a bit and indicating that the girl should sit, should she feel so inclined. ”Iroryn, or Ryn if you prefer. Cooling the skins was it? That’s easy, just a simple application of the ‘Ice Storm’ spell, I used the Stone in the hilt as a focus for better control, didn’t want to damage anything after all.”

From her seated position, Iroryn studied Eris unabashedly; Between her paleness, small size and choice of clothes she would have looked more at home in some noble mansion, probably with little outside contact, than she did out in the desert. She must have some sort of personal connection to Jing; from what I’ve seen or heard about the man I doubt he’d let any random kid sign-up just ‘cause.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

@Arthanus Okay, I'll get a reply to @Milim out sharpish like.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

Then

While Silas updated Lito about the plan, Gerad made a few minor repairs to his gear. As he was doing so, movement off to his left caught his attention. A resistance fighter had what appeared to be an APC lascannon retrofitted to work as an emplaced heavy weapon; only he had the casing open and was cursing at the obviously non-functional weapon. ”Hoy squshie,” He rumbled as he made his way over. ”Lemme ‘ave a look.” The gunner looked up in surprise when Gerad first spoke, then shrugged at his offer. “Sure, go for it…honestly I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing; I was a goddamn lawyer before all this shit started.”

Gerad chuckled as he went to work using his secondary hands and the plethora of tools build into their gauntlets to start working. The weapon had been badly abused, and whomever had done the conversion had done a rush job. He replaced a few chunks of wiring and removed a fistful of unneeded components, using them as spare parts for various repairs, before cycling the cannon through a few test cycles to make sure it was good to go. ”All riky-tik.” He said as he closed it up. The gunner thanked him profusely before calling for assistance from the rest of the gun crew to move it into a firing position.

Now

He growled in annoyance as five power armours singled him out. With his Barrier and Shields up he took a defensive stance and let his enemies circle him as they rained fire on him. While he could move with surprising speed, he also knew they were far more agile than he was and anyways while their weapons were depleting his shields, to fully collapse them would take more time and ammunition than they’d want to expend. THat said, he wasn’t just doing nothing; as targets presented themselves, he took shots with his VLA, and was grateful their tactics precluded them using and heavy missile attacks.

Lasers blasts scored armour and charred scenery as Gerad smiled behind his faceplate. Bit by bit he was pushing them towards his own ends; the more he stayed still and only took shots at the same kinds of opening that presented themselves, the more predictable they became. THERE! He thought, in their firing runs three of the armours passed close-by one another as the circled around behind him. He watched on sensors as they did it a second, and then a third time. On the fourth his PRP, which up to this moment has still been stowed away, sprang to life and unleashed a fiery blast of plasma at almost point blank. Instead of trying to hit any of the armours, he targeted a patch of ground right in the midst of them as they passed one another.

Momentum carried one suit right into the shock-front of a plasma blast that was meant to kill heavy armoured vehicles; he was dead before he’d had time to realize what was happening. The second one brushed the same shock-front, coming crashing to the ground with much of the left side burned away. The poor soul inside unfortunately survived the blast and even though his suit lost all power, his screams could still be heard over the cacophony. The third suit caught just enough of the blast to overload it’s systems and go into emergency shutdown, trapping it’s pilot.

Suddenly five on one was two on one and the survivors were shaken badly. One was so fixated on what had happened that he lost control and slammed into a waist high chunk of rubble and came to a jarring halt; before Gerad could even think about engaging him, heavy fire from the Resistance lines swamped the power armour and shredded it before the pilot could recover. The last one tried to retreat, but in a blind panic they just ran straight for their own lines. Gerad used his VLA on ‘beam’ to bore a hole right through him.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

^{@Arthanus@Nerdy Reference}

”Oh I am so terribly sorry Your Grace!” Iroryn replied to Olivia with a mischievous gleam in her golden eyes. ”It won’t happen again, Your Grace.” She added, going into an overly dramatic bow for good measure. Her good mood frosted over the moment she heard Stephan call her a ‘knife ear’ however.

Standing from her bow, she gave Olivia a more polite, but short, nod as she watched as there was a minor ‘altercation’ between Stephen and Alm. Words were exchanged and tensions edged up for a moment before Stephan backed down and Alm turned his attention to young Kaeciel. Once Stephan had returned to his hammock, she headed towards him.

Shoulders loose, eyes up. She heard her father’s voice in the back of her mind. When in doubt assume they’re hostile and think accordingly. She still held her blade, but that might be taken as a greater provocation than she wanted right now, so she let it drop; the blade tip sinking in just deep enough to keep the sword upright.

”Stephan!” She called out with a smile that never reached her eyes. She looked totally relaxed as she got close, like nothing had gone one. ”Just a moment.” She was beside his hammock and lent over, dropping her voice to keep her words between them. ”Call me a fucking ‘knife-ear’ again and you’ll shit out your own teeth.” There was no anger in her voice, just a flat matter-of-fact delivery. With that, she smile once more before moving off to reclaim her sword, and retiring to where she’d shed her gear.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

@Arthanus 1) Fair point, but she *is* not above a sucker-punch 2) Fair enough, just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

@Arthanus So, what's your stance of Irory punching Stephan in the face the first time he makes a racist comment about her or Kaeci? (She'll promise no *intentional* permanent damage...)

Also, what are anyone's thoughts on a Discord channel? (Y/N)

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

@Nerdy Reference Sorry...forgot to @ you when I posted it

Bloodrose Irregulars - The New Squad (Dark Fantasy Adventure)

^{@Nerdy Reference}

Iroryn had her boots off and her feet in the water as she filled various water skins for the team. Looking up at Stephan’s comment she laughed. ”That’s a sucker’s bet and you know it; it’s not a matter of if, but how. I got 25 that says ran out of water.” As she spoke, she finished filling the last skin and set it on the edge of the water.

Stepping out, she stuffed her feet back into her boots and retrieved her sword from where she’d set her gear when they first reached the oasis. Blade in hand, she focused on the Soul Stone in the hilt before raising her free hand towards the water skins and casting a brief burst of her ‘Ice Storm’ spell, chilling the water without freezing it to the point where the skins may have been damaged. That done, she set to returning the various skins to their owners.

While the others may have been feeling the heat, Irory seemed just fine; though she would freely admit to ‘cheating’ a bit as it were, using her ice magic on herself from time to time to keep herself if not cool, at least not as warm as some of the others. Having passed out the rest of the water, she returned the last one she had to Olivia before opening her own and swallowing a mouth full of water. ”Oh Your Grace, I’ve been meaning to ask,” She said, half teasingly as she ‘bowed’ to Olivia. ”Do you know why Lord Whoever was out here?”