DrRtron

Blades of the Blood Coast

Faeril gave a rude gesture in response to Migi's pointed look. Being prudently respectful of the gods was not being a zealot, however many godless people thought otherwise. The others were right though, particularly Jaina and Migi. They should head in to the city, as dirty as it was, and be thankful for it. A roof over their heads and air that wasn't filled with ash would do them good. They could figure out whatever it was they were going to do after that, and perhaps be able to spend some of the coins they had 'earned' from the bandits. He'd keep his pouch close, but Faeril was inclined to agree with Emmaline. They did not look nearly wealthy enough to be worthy of any proper thief's time, and there were many other people who looked like easier targets around them anyways. As they moved towards the gates, Faeril only chuckled grimly at Falfer's complaint. If the burrahob was looking for decency, he was certainly in the wrong place to find it. Decency got you killed out here. The villagers from before were decent.

They were stopped suddenly in their progress by a guard with a smarmy voice and his two friends. Listening to the bullshit spew from the man's mouth, Faeril rolled his eyes. It was an obvious sham, just a politer version of what the the bandits were doing. Not that he wasn't going to pay them. They were new in this city, with no allies. If they angered this guard they would have an enemy with some degree of power. If they really angered this guard they would be cut down in the gates of Varone, and no one would even blink. Sometimes you just had to grease the wheels, no matter how annoying it was. Faeril jerked back before the guards could get too close to him with their billhooks, pulling his own hood off. He didn't like having a weapon that close to his face at the best of times, and he hadn't been in the best of times for a long while.

Faeril nodded at the guards, not wanting to alarm them any further with sudden movements, and slowly reached for his coin pouch to pay the two silver lordings. It would be nothing compared to the overall money their group had gotten from the bandits, and this truly wasn't worth arguing over.

At least, that's what Faeril had thought. Lorcan obviously thought differently, launching into a small tirade. As the giant of a man continued to talk, Faeril looked at him incredulously. Personality checks? Economy imbalance? None of these guards gave a flying fuck about that. Why was the giant incapable of being quiet? A curse from the gods? A nervous tick? Whatever it was, it was proving to be more and more of a nuiscance with every situation the group found themselves in. Faeril shook his head, pulling the two coins requested from his pouch. Before he could speak or move forward to end the situation before it grew worse, the crazy woman stepped forward.

Gods how he wished they could simply pay the guard his requested bribe.

Despite his growing frustration, at least Emmaline's attempt was better than whatever the fuck Lorcan had just said. Faeril was pleasantly surprised. Her words were all outright lies that could very easily backfire, sure, but he wasn't about to undercut her. Not when she was proving to be actually useful. She made a very convincing noblewoman, Faeril had to admit. He might have bought it when he was a guard. Early on in his career of course.

Even if posing as a noblewoman was the exact opposite of the low profile that Raddek had requested, Faeril hoped it worked. He just wanted this entire ordeal to be overwith. With Emmaline acting more competently than he had given her credit for, Faeril simply took a step so that he was behind her and kept the two coins closed in his fist. If the guards didn't buy this, he would give them their bribe and apologize for his friends. Maybe make up a lie about ash poisoning.

Falling Skies: Reboot ver 2

The river churned as another overgrown lizard charged towards the titan. The river behind it was already littered with the corpses of the pack of drakes that had decided to charge down towards them, evicerated by the heavy cannons of the titan. With the suriving drake closing the distance too quickly for the cannons to be of accurate use (not to mention the need to save them for actual MAS) the minigun rose over the Titan's shoulder and unleashed a torrent of bullets, tearing into the monster's hide until it couldn't keep itself standing any longer. The corpse came to a sudden halt, gliding through the water before sinking down in a red bloom.

"Sure, lets go to the jungle planet! She couldn't have crashlanded anywhere else, nooo, had to crash land in the jungle. Cause that's where all the fun is! And filled with stupid wildlife that doesn't know not to try to bite the things with bigger guns than they have claws!" Gansu complained to himself as he turned around and began lumbering back towards the clearing. At least they had been able to salvage something of a victory from this shit show and grabbed Sunray before the Coalition could. Having to go rescue the target from the clutches of Coalition forces would have been a massive pain in the ass, without even factoring in having to assualt a Coalition base with little to no intel and next to no support.

Gansu's eyes lit up as Boss's voice crackled across the comms, giving the indication of the closest enemies to Sunray and Pips. He excitedly hit the squad's encrypted channel and spoke rapidly. "Three o'clock you say? 10 klicks? I can hit that from here! Give us a little breathing room and show ole Grizz that he's not the only one who can devastate the local enviroment with his big gun!" Not waiting for a reply, Gansu aimed the Titan towards the direction Ingram had indicated and activated his plasma cannon. Four spikes shot into the ground from the Titan's feet, anchoring it, as the cannon itself rose directly above the MAS's head. Blue energy crackled up the barrel and Gansu settled backwards into his seat, bracing. The entire Titan tilted backwards, creaking against its stabilizers, as the X34 fired.

The beam of violent blue energy tore through everything in its path, leaving nothing but melted and burned earth behind. With the X34 fired and returned to its normal positon, the stabilizing spikes retracted. Gansu cackled over comms, surveying his handy work with a smug grin as he lumbered into position in the clearing. "Targets at three o'clock elminated. A fine bit of handy work if I do say so myself. Not as precise as Grizzly's, but you know the X34 doesn't need precision when you destroy as many things in your path as it does."

He waited, scanning the jungle around him. "Pips, give a call out when you and Sunray are here. I don't want to see a Coalition MAS and accidentally shoot our prio. That'd kinda look bad on the record."

Blades of the Blood Coast

Also: What would an alternative route have been to 'help them out' ? Would it have been better ?

@Fetzen

In Faeril's eyes, yes. Most of us are dressed in literal bandit clothing that probably has bloodstains on it, and we're armed.

Not that Faeril wants to pay, and he had high hopes for Lorcan's excessive talking when he first started. Then, well, the one happened.

Blades of the Blood Coast

<Snipped quote by DrRtron>

That is literally Reyvadin’s plan to take back his kingdom. You don’t think he’s going to March up there without an army right?

@Lucius Cypher

I figured it was more of a 'get rich and buy a bunch of mercs' plan.

Maybe a 'return and request an honorable duel for control of the kingdom' plan.

I return to this...this...insurrection!

@POOHEAD189

Blades of the Blood Coast

<Snipped quote by DrRtron>
Hi, are you my DnD party?

@psych0pomp

Don't need to worry about TPK if you've got an army of meat shields around the Party at all times.

Blades of the Blood Coast

I am not planning on the party getting bigger, believe me. Also, there will be a post for everyone in 48 hours!

@POOHEAD189

Alright we know what we gotta do.

Aggressively recruit every friendly NPC we find.

Blades of the Blood Coast

My favorite thing about Lorcan is that he just comes up with diss tracks for everyone he doesn't like, seemingly regularly.

Blades of the Blood Coast

An inn or somewhere that we can centrally meet up at before we scatter off would be good. So we can all meet up again when/if we get into trouble or find a job.

Mass Effect: Vigil

Janiri moved quickly to restrain the drells after they collapsed, lest Karnoc decide that it was better to kill these ones too. The drell she was fighting could have been saved, had the krogan shown restraint. That was their mission. Save the drell, deal with whatever was mind controlling them. The krogan had decided to ignore that and simply act as if they were already turned into husks, or whatever the drell equivalent of Reaper forces would be. Not that it mattered anymore.

The drell was dead and the mission was done. It was time to move on, same as last time she had fought. Janiri finished securing one drell and looked around. There wasn't anything for her to do now. The others were taking care of the surviving drell and there wasn't any equipment that they could safely retrieve. As brutal as Karnoc had been, he was right about one thing; don't mess with reaper technology.

She paused as she saw the explosion mark that was the remains of their former comrade. She hadn’t known him but he had fought beside them and sacrificed himself for an ally. That was enough. Janiri clasped her hands in front of her, murmuring quietly to herself. “Piares, She-Who-Guides, take the fallen under your wings and usher them quickly into the afterlife. Ensure they do not get lost and trapped in our world. Grant them the rest they have earned.”

That finished, Janiri sent Kuri up into the sky to watch for anything that might have been drawn by the gunfire. Be it desperate scavengers, carnivorous local wildlife, or anything else that would need to be dealt with. She moved back towards the shuttle when Yarik’s panicked voice came through the comms. A shot of adrenaline mixed with no small amount of fear hit Janiri. Of course the Locust was awake. It was the one thing they didn’t want happening. Nothing could ever go right.

She began moving as quickly as she could towards the shuttle, tapping commands into her omni-tool to bring Kuri back down. They needed to leave. She didn’t know what the Locust could do, but it was powerful enough that it needed to be mind controlled and put to sleep to be safely handled and that was enough for her to be eager to leave it behind.

She was just about to enter the shuttle when a distant explosion caught her attention. Janiri hung her head dejectedly. “Fuck.” She didn’t even need to hear Yarik’s voice over the comms to know what was coming next. Kuri was launched back into the air, this time with orders to kill, and she scrambled to a defensive position behind a rusted hull. She whispered a prayer to herself, attempting to control the shaking in her hands. “Kurinth, goddess of the hunt and warrior of the night, bless us this day…”

As the Locust appeared behind the infiltration team, Janiri’s heart seemed to leap into her throat. By all the gods it was big. She swore she could hear that terrifying buzzing right next to her, even though it was over 50 meters away. Her rifle shook and no matter how many times she ordered herself too, she couldn’t pull the trigger and bring its attention to her.

By the time she regained control of her fear, Kuri and the others had already fired. The Locust was behind a dune and she had missed her chance to fire at it. Cursing she aimed her avenger at the dune. She had to do better, or she was going to end up like the drell that Karnoc had killed.

As the seeker swarm flew from behind the dune and straight towards the drell, Janiri’s eyes widened in panic. She took a step from behind her cover and reached a useless hand out. She didn’t even have any biotics, what was she planning to do? While Janiri watched with a useless hand held out, the swarm tore the drell they had just saved to shreds and continued straight towards her. Janiri dove back behind her metal ship and activated her tech armor, curling into a ball with her hands over her head as the swarm raced past.

Fortunately her tech armor and shields held under the assault. The drones ineffective scratching and clawing making her curl even more in on herself. When they had passed she shakily pulled herself to her feet. She took a couple shaky breaths and made herself aim back at the Locust. It was just coming around the dune. She was shaking too badly to properly aim her rifle, but that wouldn’t stop Kuri nor her Overload.

The assault drone fired down at the Locust, bullets ineffectually bouncing off of its barrier, as Janiri stepped out from behind her cover. She extended her hand again, this time with the omni-tool crackling with blue energy. With a gesture a bolt of blue lightning shot across the battlefield and crashed into the green barrier of the Locust. Janiri didn’t even bother to see how well she had done, immediately jumping back behind cover to avoid any counter attack. She hoped and prayed Karnoc would do what he had done last fight, and take all the attention off of her again. He would like that, probably.

Blades of the Blood Coast

I see that everyone only has sparkling reviews for each other. Really, this group will come together through mutual love, admiration, and honest trust. I can feel it.

That or the fact that we're all pretty good at murdering things and not letting each other get murdered by said things. One of the two.