Dulcet

The Last March of the Living

Say, do the shamblers walk only when they're marching and stalking, or are they slow while fighting as well; just that they're strong and tireless? What would you say their organization is like (if they have any?)

The Last March of the Living

"...characters might be alone."

@Nariata

You've struck fear into my heart over the safety of my crew. Hopefully unwittingly, but it's always more fun to think something sinister's been let slip.

The Fate of Ishida's Point (Zombies and Politics)

@Firecracker_
Loving the sound of the setting.

Will there be room at the beginning for some intrigue to go on? Will we start off before/during the "expedition," or will we have time to flesh out our morals and the relationships that we'll be leaving behind? What kind of depth are you looking for in the group; will they mostly be a motley crew with similar ideals--and thus similar reasons to be sent on the expedition--or is there a chance that one of us may perhaps attempt to expedite the group's fate and report back to their masters in the government?

Looking forward to see where it goes.

Rolling Thunder: A Sci-Fi Tank Crew Stuck in a Fantasy World

I would love to be the gunner behind letting futuristic hellfire loose.

What positions are open in the tank? Are they the same as the modern positions?

The Last March of the Living

I don't know if people get notified when you make edits, but I'm just doing a little housekeeping on my post; saw a mechanical error in it and corrected it. (removed a stray "was" when describing how Madeline weighs a touch more than Aliya)

The Last March of the Living

Alright, it's up there, and honestly I'm glad I took the time to rewrite it a couple of times because I had a novella at first. Posts in the future should be a bit speedier; jet lag's mostly gone.

Edit: @Prince of Seraphs had some trouble with Aliya's accent, so I realized it wouldn't really come over that well if I kept at it (I'd probably forget eventually.) In my head it was a Scottish-type thing, but in the grand scheme of things it's fluff. EDIT x2: Methinks it's better just to keep it in regular text from now on

The Last March of the Living

Name: Aliya Montcarre

Gender: Female

Age: 20

Race: Human / Lavas

Appearance:

A woman of middling height, with sun-kissed going-on-olive skin and strong, but not overly toned muscles. Healthy, from a rich diet of fresh seafood and island fruits, with a thin, soft layer of fat mostly concentrated in a faint paunch stemming from a fondness of weak drink. She has a head of full but unkempt long black hair that reaches the small of her back, with a large swathe of the center tied up into a folded updo, while her remaining hair is tied into two long braids that disappear into her garments, to be affixed her clothing.

Should she have an assistant to help her, and she feels like wearing a special set of clothing, her hair is instead worn in thirteen long strands, twelve tied into metal loops on the back of her dress clothing, and the last, central strand braided and adorned with a keepsake from her late mother.

Her appearance betrays her youth, despite her attempts to conceal it. Typically she wears a white veil and only reveals her turquoise eyes. Without them, one can see she has a small, unremarkable mouth that seems to constantly be curled up into a gentle smile. Her face is not striking; rather, her features are soft and blend together well, to compliment a slightly-rounded profile and sharper chin, with cheekbones closer to her eyes than to her mouth. At first glance, without her veil, one would see her bright eyes before taking in her face.

Personality:

Immediately welcoming, but increasingly reserved the closer one gets to her; at the gates of her heart are walls she deems insurmountable. Quick to make poorly-thought jokes and to dole out compliments and generous gifts, she, like other Lavas, also has a mercantile side lacking in any amount of reservation. Coin is her greatest ice breaker, and she delights in adding to her extensive hoard. She can be controlling, but it’s yet to be seen if she has a rotten madness within when things don’t go her way. If she’s not pleased with something, she’ll simply smile and bear it, and then proceed to cut her losses.

If there is one thing she holds in reverence, it is the ocean, and the life that flourishes in and around it. She prefers not to bother most sea creatures unless they’re common foodstuffs, overly-large (enough to ride on,) or if they pose a threat to her or her ship. Contrasting this, she despises dry land, and would spend fortunes to avoid setting foot on it; to the point that she purchased two galleons and crewed them exclusively with hand-picked women so that she could board an outbound vessel while one went to port. Her dislike of land is closely followed by a strong dislike of both the Glamhoth and the idiot general that started the war in the first place. She reasoned that a fool that couldn’t read a map would get their entire crew killed.

Short-Form History:

Born into a rich family, Aliya never once knew the feeling of dry land until she was well into her adolescence. She spent her days picking up hobbies ranging from the mundane to the strange, and eventually settled on a fixation on swashbuckling. She was eager to pick up a boarding axe and cutlass, and soon found joy in leaping haphazardly from the decks of her ships.

While she was getting a grasp on combat, her mother quickly fell ill and perished. Her father was devastated, and called his entire fleet back to port for a month of mourning. Aliya associated the stillness of dry land with the stillness of death, and decided she’d rather die than be forced to live on land. She redoubled her efforts in bettering herself, and soon her father gave her command of a small personal fleet to explore with.

Aliya understood that—because she only accepted women into her crew—she would need a group of experienced fighters to accompany her. Her choice of mercenaries, however, was a grave mistake. Only two months after setting out, the mercenaries betrayed her and ambushed her with a group of pirates. The mistake cost Aliya’s crew fifty of the sixty lives it had, and she limped back home in disgrace.

This did not deter her, and she soon returned to the open ocean—this time with a crew of only the finest female sailors she could find. She personally drilled them in the lessons she learned from her brief stint in combat, and they learned dutifully. She gained fame and fortune from running clandestine cargo, and settled into her new life.

Things changed for her after she docked in a port city close to the Anfangrim mountainhomes. There, she met a mad clocksmith that bestowed a prototype weapon on her. It was one of many, and the clocksmith hoped that by spreading the technology as far as he could, it could one day save someone’s life. He did not explain it, but Aliya was intrigued by the suggestion that some great happening was on the horizon. She graciously accepted the man’s invention, and anxiously awaits the adventure to follow.”

Long-Form History

Aliya was born into a rich family, with a fleet of fishing vessels to their name. She was born at sea, where she would spend the vast majority of her lifetime. From a young age she worked with her mother’s personal crew—all women—and quickly picked up the finer points of command. She never quite got the hang of sailing, but could always trust her crew knew what to do based on what she told them. Trade and exploration were her joys for much of her life, and her parents whole-heartedly supported her with her endeavors; though they would never let her set sail without one of them aboard her ship.

Being out on sea gave Aliya plenty of time to pick up strange hobbies and think. At first she took more common hobbies, like fishing, or whittling, but over time she grew to crave more and more complex, esoteric pursuits. For a short while, she was interested in the tarot, and to a lesser extent, the occult, but this phase came and went, though she keeps her birth cards on hand: the Devil, and the Lovers. One of her attendants had a small flute, which Aliya learned to play with some degree of skill. On and on she went, until she settled most recently on combat skills: particularly fond of boarding actions and deck combat.

While she was learning how to handle an axe while jumping from one moving ship to another, her mother fell ill and perished to an unknown disease. Her father, gutted at the loss, brought all his ships to port for a month to mourn her. This would be the first time that Aliya was on solid land for an extended period of time. Soon, the grief over the loss of her mother was augmented by a certain sickness—a feeling that land was too solid; too foreign for her. She came to associate the stillness of the land with the stillness of death, and was relieved to finally go out to sea again. Her father—still grieving—chose to stay on land, and for the first time Aliya set out in sole command of a small fleet of three clippers.

Her choice of vessels complimented her desire for boarding actions—rather than cannon warfare. Her ships were equipped with reinforced bows and installed the strongest rams that she could find, along with three harpaxes on both sides of the ship. Knowing that her female crews would be at a disadvantage in a melee, she begrudgingly hired a company of mercenaries to accompany her in another clipper of her specification. The mercenary company headed their fleet, and would specialize entirely in combat; both with cannon and in melee.

Aliya’s days of exploring were short, however. Only two months into her exploration, the mercenaries in their company disappeared during a storm. At the time, they had been docked by a large island, and Aliya assumed that the mercenaries would be somewhere nearby. A few days later, their fleet was ambushed by a two pirate frigates, led by the missing mercenaries.

The resulting fight was brutal, but through superior speed and tactics, along with smaller displacements, Aliya ran the two pirate ships aground and set them afire. The mercenary clipper, however, caught up to her while her other ships were busy burning the pirate vessels. Their men were excellent marksmen, and landed their harpaxes from extreme range. Aliya’s crew couldn’t cut the harpoons before the mercenaries were on them. Her crew numbered sixty, while the mercenaries fifty. Their difference in combat skill was immediately apparent, however, and Aliya and a large group of her crew were driven up the aftcastle in short order.

With nowhere to go and her two other ships too far out to render aid, Aliya and her crew used anything they could as weapons. They went from swords and axes to resorting to using mops to push the mercenaries back, and eventually ended up kicking stray barrels down the stairways at them. Her crew kept Aliya far away from the front against her orders, and were cut down. By the time Aliya was able to fight, her crew was down to ten able to fight against twenty men.

It was at this time that Aliya realized that her training amounted to very little without experience to back it up. Her form with a boarding axe and cutlass was excellent, but she was easily brushed aside by more muscular, battle-hardened foes. She called the surrender of her crew with the mercenary captain’s voulge to her throat a short while after she was cornered, and the mercenary crew was quick to bind and gag her crew. The captain extended a “cordial” offer to Aliya: an empty promise that his men, “will hold out raping, abusing, and killing her crew for as long as they can,” in exchange for Aliya’s servitude whenever the captain pleased.

There was no room for negotiation, but for once that was not what angered Aliya the most. In a brief window of opportunity, she knocke the voulge out of the captain’s hands. When he tried to clumsily pick it up, the shorter handle disconnected from the shaft, and Aliya’s skill and speed finally pulled through for her. She seized the blade and drove the spike through the man’s stomach, before swinging it around and catching him on the neck. In her rage, she kept chopping until the man’s head was cut clean off, and then crushed it underfoot. The other mercenaries were too busy hauling Aliya’s crew onto their vessel, and the prize crew was below-deck checking for any hidden survivors. Aliya only had to fight two men to start.

She turned the captain’s head over his throat to cover it in blood, and then ran to the two men on her deck. She threw the bloody head at the one on the left and landed a perfect hit as he turned to face her. The other mercenary was too slow to react, and she drove the spike of the voulge into his stomach, and similarly swung the weapon around to disembowel him. His partner didn’t even see Aliya before she charged him with the spiked end of the shaft and tossed him overboard. She repeated similar actions—freeing her crew as she went—until she could hang the dead bodies of the entire mercenary crew from the sides of her ship and the mainsail.

Despite the sudden victory, her ship was far too damaged to continue sailing for long, and she grudgingly returned to port. Her father was outraged at the mercenary guild, and several men were tried and executed in the following weeks; many more were found strung up and gutted around the port areas. Aliya took to training her crew as hard as she could, and soon she felt as if she mastered the trophy she had taken from the mercenary captain. She had another one made to her specifications, and burned the old one. She swore to her crew that they’d only ever rely on themselves from then on. She hired the finest, and then the women sailors not quite the best at what they did. She organized training for her crew; going so far as to hire master crews and famed female warriors to teach them. Her crew devoured the training she administered, and she built up a truly remarkable crew. She returned to her father triumphantly, and requested a small loan from his fleet to call her own.

Her father was delighted when he tested her crew, and gave her a much newer set of ships:four clippers and the fastest frigate available. The timing of this could not be any better. With both speed and sizeable defenses, her fleet was considered one of the best at ferrying precious cargo and sensitive information in a time of growing unrest. Whispers of a great war were brewing, and all races spoke in frantic whispers and hidden gestures in an attempt to stay ahead of the oncoming storm. Aliya went from being simply wealthy to nearly controlling a small city’s worth of coin in secrets.

On her journeys, during a short stay in a port city with links to the Anfangrim mountainhomes, Aliya encountered what she thought was a stark-raving mad clocksmith. He would not stop going on about his invention; his “masterpiece.” He called it a clock that told the user more than just the time: it told them the time left on their life. Aliya was perplexed, but couldn’t get any reasonable explanation from the man. She dismissed him until she noticed a single figure just barely out of place in the shadows; weapon drawn. From their steely look, she could only guess that they had heard the madman, and knew exactly what he was talking about.

Before they could attack, Aliya hauled the man away; back to her ship. She had him confined to a small room, and she waited at attention for something to happen. At dawn the following day, a squat pair of humans requested boarding, and left Aliya with a box addressed to the clocksmith. She could not shake a feeling of dread that came from the imp-like men.

The clocksmith, on the other hand, seemed saner the moment he saw the box. He eagerly opened it and tinkered with its contents, and Aliya watched in surprise when she recognized the silhouette of a pistol. She could not recognize was the strange lock it had. The dwarf would not explain it in detail, fearing “leery ears” were listening to them. When he inquired about what Aliya and her ship did, he was delighted to hear that they were well known—perhaps counterintuitively—for their ability to take clandestine cargo from one place to another. He said that he would make as many of the weapons as his tired hands could manage, and he would entrust them to as many people as he could believe would keep them safe. There was something looming on the horizon, and—while one invention might not change the course of history—there was a chance that it could. He begged Aliya to take one with her, and told her that when the time came that it would be needed, she would need to find the most adept engineer she could to bring the weapon together.

“By no means will this save the world,” the clocksmith said, “But it may save you, or whomever you bring it to; and that certainty is what keeps me working tirelessly.”

With little reason to refuse, Aliya took the box that had been delivered to her ship and locked it safely in her quarters. The clocksmith disappeared in that short time, and Aliya did not press the issue any further. She smelled an adventure, and would have her take of it.

Equipment:

Voulge—shaft splits about 20 cm from the blade and can be detached to use the head as an axe / cleaver, while the other end has a short spike in the bottom
Complete set of parts of a wheellock pistol and a bag of shot and powder.
Cotton sailor’s clothes
Boots
Small bag of supplies
Mother’s Hair Ornament: a thin golden ornament about the size of 3 fingers side-by-side. The top portion of the ornament is a manta ray with its fins outstretched, facing ‘upwards’; a blue gemstone rests along its dorsal region. Below it is the visage of a jellyfish.
Two tarot cards: the Devil and the Lovers.

Other:

Capable of fishing (with adequate tools)
Familiar with Lavas flutes

The Last March of the Living

Aliya Montcarre:

Aliya’s eyes slowly crept open, and a tiny slit of light greeted her. She shivered despite the blanket around her shoulders, and looked around in confusion. She had expected to be back on the Leone, sailing back into Lavas waters, but instead she was surrounded in dirt and rough wooden supports… and then it struck her.

She remembered arriving at the mouth of the river, and just barely avoiding beaching the Leone. A small, gnarled wretch of a man standing in a clearing to pick up their cargo. The feeling of dread that came over her before an otherworldly force marched her three hours from the river to an isolated outpost… the screams and shouts of surprise as she and her away team were ambushed there. Blindly charging at the enemy in a rage, and then getting separated from the rest of her crew; save for her first mate. A night of cursing and fleeing from a slowly-shambling enemy.

She noticed she was alone, and panic welled up again.

“Madeline? Where are ya?” she called out, but no reply came.

Last night they had been extremely lucky to stumble onto a hunting blind and subsequently have enough time to stuff its viewing slit full of dirt, leaves, and branches. While the horde shuffled around the blind, none of them ever set foot near or on it. Unless the enemy had wandered off, there would have been no time for Madeline to slip away.

Aliya realized that the blind’s viewing slit should have been stuffed shut. Something had cleared away the debris.

She stood up and pawed around the dark interior until her hands chanced upon her voulge. When she tried to reach for the shaft, she only grasped air.

“Must’ve taken the shaft and gone out,” she thought, and she stumbled around the blind until she found its hide-covered exit.

Without stopping to check if there was any danger outside, Aliya stepped out from the blind and into the forest’s dim morning sunlight. Her landsickness buzzed in the back of her mind already, and she stumbled over a tree root as she looked around. Madeline was nowhere to be found.

Anxiety began to creep up into her thoughts. She didn’t care much for being alone for the most part, but being alone in a forest seemingly filled to the brim with ungodly creatures bent on killing her was not ideal. Her grip on her voulge tightened, and she held it at the ready. Shadows that were once benign started to make her jump, and the rustling in the trees was greeted by the end of her weapon.

“Captain,” came a voice from behind her. Aliya jumped, and swung around to find a weary-looking Madeline staring at her. “This certainly isn’t your element, is it?”

“Oh, bloody fuckin'ell,” Aliya sighed as she relaxed. “Had me worried. Thought you’d gone and gotten yerself killed while I was sleeping.”

Madeline stifled a laugh. “With all due respect, Captain, I think that I’m the better on-land outdoorsman than you are; given I was raised in a forest like this one.”

Aliya feigned annoyance, but then smiled. “Well, I’ll give ya that. Glad you’re picking up my slack, as always.”

The wind rustled the trees again, and Aliya looked to Madeline. She motioned to get back into the blind, and Aliya followed.

“What were y’doing out there anyways?” Aliya asked

“Gathering these,” Madeline started while she unfurled her shirt to reveal a bounty of berries and nuts, “...and I also took the liberty of climbing the tallest tree I could find to check both for enemies and for landmarks.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Well, the good news is that it seems that the beasts have wandered off somewhere to the west. Doesn’t even look like they left anyone behind to watch out for us.”

Aliya frowned. “Bad news?”

“I have no idea where we are,” Madeline stated bluntly, and Aliya deflated. “The river’s well outside of my sight, and as far as I could tell, there’s us and this forest, and that’s it.”

They looked at each other in silence, and the situation weighed heavily on them. Aliya’s landsickness seemed to worsen for a while, and Madeline was markedly uncomfortable-looking as well. To pass the awkward silence, they absently began to snack on what little food they stumbled upon, but all it seemed to do was increase their appetites.

“I really wish we had just chosen to go on leave now,” Madeline said wryly, and she threw some pebbles around.

“Would’ve been nice t’visit those clearwater isles, yeah,” Aliya sighed. “I don’t wanna die on bloody land, of all things.”

Silence fell on them again, and Aliya began to grumble. “We can’t just sit in this blind n’die—though you’re better company to die with than most.”

Madeline nodded. “I don’t want to just slowly starve to death either.”

“What say we take our chances out there? If we take an arrow to the neck or get hacked t’bits at least it’ll be quick.”

“I will always follow you, Captain. ” Madeline replied firmly. "Lead the way, and I'll be right behind you."

Aliya clapped her on the shoulder. “Good lass.”

She rummaged around the blind, and found the blanket she had been using, along with her rucksack. The thing was heavy with a locked box and a few of her personal belongings. She waited for Madeline to gather whatever she might have lying around, and led the two of them out of the blind. She turned around a few times before stopping, and started walking in that direction. Madeline dutifully followed.


They walked for an hour in silence until Aliya finally got fed up with the bleariness of it and stopped at the base of a tall tree. She pointed up, and set her things down at its base. Madeline followed suit, and took the first few branches herself—her being a touch heavier than Aliya made it better for her to find the stronger branches. Aliya’s landsickness vanished once she got onto the swaying branches, and she sighed in relief. Madeline sat a few branches below Aliya, who sat at the top of the tree and peered out at the landscape.

She scanned the horizon, and both she and Madeline happened on a small village at the same time. When Aliya looked down, she and Madeline locked eyes.

“Our luck’s holding out, it seems!” Aliya chimed.

“Always, Captain,” Madeline agreed, and she slid off her branch to climb down to the next one.

Aliya’s climb was faster than Madeline, and she eventually caught up to her first mate. They looked at each other when she passed, and then Aliya heard the faintest thwick sound. A moment later, a war arrow tore through the branches and caught Madeline in the arm. Her eyes widened first in surprise, and then shut in pain. Her grip on the branches faltered, and she began to slip.

More thwick sounds.

Aliya let go of her branch and fell twice her height to the next one. Madeline did the same, but landed stomach-first onto a thicker branch. Aliya could hear her breath get knocked out of her just before the arrows struck the branches they had been in. She frantically looked around for where the arrows had come from, but had no idea where the shooters were. At the very least, they had reentered the canopy and would be much harder to hit.

“Y’alright!?” she yelled at Madeline.

“This’ll kill me by blood loss… provided we even make it to the damned ground…!” Madeline grimaced as she tried to move. The blood streaming down from her wound came out furiously, and Aliya knew that she would have only a few minutes to get her heart rate down and put something on the wound to staunch the flow.

The last few branches were torturous, and Aliya dropped to the ground well before Madeline did. A stray arrow occasionally landed in the higher branches, and Aliya’s heart skipped a beat as one of them landed a hand’s length from Madeline’s form.

“Just fall out the ruddy tree!” Aliya called up, and she scrambled into a spotting stance. “I’ll catch you, or you’ll die quicker!”

“Captain, I would really love to make it back to the Leone alive! You better catch me!” Madeline replied.

A moment after that, Madeline fell back and off of her branch. Aliya stumbled back and forth trying to find the best place to catch her, and was both relieved and astounded when Madeline fell square into her arms. Her sudden weight send Aliya to the ground, and Madeline cried out in pain when her arm slammed into the soil.

“I actually bloody caught ya…” Aliya groaned.

“You told me to jump and had no idea if you could catch me!?” Madeline complained angrily.

“You’re alive, aren’tcha? Can y’get to yer feet?”

Madeline struggled, and with her good arm she managed to stumble to her feet. Aliya rolled towards her things, grabbed them, and leapt up.

“Can y’walk by yourself? At least to the town?” Aliya asked.

Madeline shrugged slowly. “Got no idea what’s left in me, Captain. The lightheadedness is setting in, and the cold is too.”

Aliya slapped her forehead. “Bleedin’ fucking flies; that’s right! Hold still while I tie off the damned wound!” she said, and she hurriedly produced her blanket from her rucksack. She tore a long strip of it off, and tightly tied off the flesh before Madeline’s wound--not as tight as a tourniquet, but enough to slow her bleeding. “Can you hold the bottom of the shaft?”

“You’re going to use a voulge to chop off the rest of it?” Madeline said incredulously. “That’ll probably stir up the wound even more!”

“I can’t just saw it off! It’s the fastest way t’go!”

“Just leave it be! We don’t have time to deal with it!”

“Damnit!” Aliya hissed, and she ducked under Madeline’s arm and lifted her up. “I’ll take the weight off of your legs at the very least, then.”

Madeline made no complaint, so Aliya picked up her voulge in her free hand and started shuffling the two of them in the general direction of the village. Their pace was slow, and they had no idea if their assailants were watching, but she was going to be damned if she didn’t at least try to save Madeline’s life.

“Captain,” Madeline wheezed as they picked up speed, “Permission to be honest with you?”

“Don’t you dare say anything sappy at a time like this,” Aliya barked, “You just said that you'd love to get back to the Leone! You’re making it out of here, and you’re going to be my first mate for the rest of our ruddy lives!”

Despite her wounds, Madeline laughed. A bright, genuine laugh; one that Aliya didn’t usually hear from her serious first mate.

“If I die, what I was going to say will go to the grave, Captain.”

“Shut it! I’m not dying here, and you’re certainly not!”

Madeline laughed again, and Aliya felt a slight tinge of dread. She hoped that it wouldn’t be the last time she heard it.

The Last March of the Living

Still working on my post; got a huge wall of text done and realized most of it could just be outside info. It'll be up soon(tm)

The Last March of the Living

@A Heretic Yeah, I PM'd about it; I was told matchlocks were coming into vogue with the dwarves, so having a different lock mechanism was something I'd have to have reason for. I was hoping it'd sit well the way I had it.