Haeo

Sky Warriors: Birth Of An Army

Posted! It's not quite as great as I wanted, understating terribly, but I hope it gives enough to work with.@Dynamo Frokane@ShiningSector

Sky Warriors: Birth Of An Army

There was no response from the Iron Jackson and the Long-Dive continued its climb as the newest uninvited party guests exchanged words with Lungfirst’s boss. They apparently decided that it was a good day for them to die. He continued his climb as he already had quite a bit of altitude on the rest of the planes by the time the bounty hunters broke formation. They were also right in the center of his optimal targeting zone for his rear AA missile launcher. Even better, if any of them tried to line up a rocket with him they’d have to get on his six and that would put them squarely in the sights of his rear rocket launcher as well.

Upgraded engines or not, it’s always been a pain to dodge during a rapid climb. Though, they did have one advantage over the Long-Dive. They could dogfight. He could not. He made a mental note to not sacrifice his altitude advantage next time, even if he was ordered to. But, for the present moment, he called Pandora over the data link with a simple text message.

“Tag any special targets – Long-Dive.”

If the enemy planes had a scanner or any other dedicated equipment on one plane or another then he would target those as priority marks for missile strikes. Until they picked their targets and became predictable he would hold off on targeting them. Missile lock alarms can get almost anyone’s attention and he needed more altitude before he actively attracted attention. In the meantime, he held his climb, watched, waited, and kept track of the Iron Jackson’s flight path. He knew that it would look like he was running away. That was part of his plan. Hopefully it would work. If they headed for the Iron Jackson's six o'clock then he could easily adjust his angle of ascent to free up some Air-Ground missiles. They might not be well suited for hitting air targets but they would be about as fast as rockets and explode with twice the area of effect if the hunters failed to react in time.

@ShiningSector@Dynamo Frokane

From the weakest goblin to the Strongest god

I have posted! And, by the way, if anyone is wandering about somewhere and feels the need for some company then feel free to stumble Skrik's way. As yet, he only has a crude anesthetic but he has a future in medicine and magic.

By the by, @Jangel13, I'm going to try and lead into some simple magic with polished crystals as focuses. I'm thinking of basic illusion and fire magic as a start, spells like Dazzling Lights to blind the target and Flame Dart. This discovery would lead into additional reverence for the Web of Life, Earth, and Water. He will likely start praying soon as well, whether anyone hears him would be up to you of course.

From the weakest goblin to the Strongest god

Skrik the Goblin

Skrik had found it easy to find the stream after getting close enough to hear it. The usefulness of water made the sound encouraging but something about it was worrying as well. In fact, he was a little disappointed when he got in view. This was a babbling brook, shallow and moderately swift with a horned rabbit drinking from the bank. It should have been an ideal situation for a hunt with the prey distracted, the wind from the direction of the stream and the sound of flowing water to cover his approach. But, the pebbled bank extended more than ten strides from the water’s edge and was completely devoid of cover. The stones were smooth and dry, prone to rattling when disturbed, and yet some of them were quite shiny. He would take a closer look at the stones when he was done with the business at hand. For now, they would make stealth almost impossible.

In his first hunt, stealth had been his friend. Indeed, he felt that it had a place in this hunt as well. However, it had to play a lesser part this time. The horned rabbit’s head was down. It could see along the bank to either side of it but not directly behind or above itself. The open ground between the pebbled bank and the tree line had one small blessing over the forest floor. It lacked the carpet of leaves and twigs that had challenged his fledgling stealth skills before. It was a blanket of smooth grass that had been grazed smooth by beasts. He would have no problem approaching the bank quietly. However he would have to cross that last leg of the journey without disturbing his prey until he reached it.

There was only one way that he could think of. He would have to jump.

He began to slowly move over the grass, avoiding any noise that could be heard over the wind and stream. The horned rabbit wasn’t being very watchful. It seemed to be very thirsty and Skrik would count on that need slowing its reaction time. It would be a little reluctant to turn from its drink. After he closed to within a suitable distance and had a good feel for the grass underfoot he smoothly and quietly accelerated to a dash, reading the horned rabbit’s posture for clues as to how it would move when it detected him, and then he leaped. He led with his open hand, seeking to pin the rabbit against the ground by its neck or slash its legs if he missed, and kept his knife ready to strike a finishing blow with his other hand.

He knew that this kind of pounce had some risk involved. If he missed he could find himself splashing face first into the stream or the rocks. The worst case scenario could leave him with a broken neck or bleeding from an attack by the rabbit.

My Hidden Value

EXP:

Inventory: (Numbing) Poison Rock Knife, Cloth Wristbands, Cloth Neckband, Tight Loincloth, Numbing Bark

Starting Skill: Butcher’s Insight [Heightened ability to find vital points, predict movement based on physiology, and get the most out of a carcass.]
Acquired Skills: Slash (claws),

Titles:

Blessings:

Curses:

@Jangel13

Sky Warriors: Birth Of An Army

I'm working on it but this is a busy time. Getting set for some remodeling. I'll get a post up in the next day or two.

From the weakest goblin to the Strongest god

@ReusableSword I'm doing alright. My brood is healthy enough to exhaust me. That's always a good sign.

Estaria(takes heavy inspiration from Log Horizon)

UserName- Alfbane13371
Alias- Friends, if he had any, would call him Alf. Everyone else uses Bane.
Age- 24
Reputation- Popularly viewed as a shady character, stalker, despicable bully, abuser of young girls, and probably a pervert. Damaging rumors about him are numerous and vile. The first one that anyone hears is that he tried to cheat at an irl contest when he was competing against Nightingale but was caught by the judges and was disqualified.
Guild- None. Unofficially black listed.
Race- Elf
Class- Hunter
Equipment- (This list includes only primary combat equipment due to the fact that his inventory/magic bag contains a large variety of tools and materials.)

Life Echo Longbow [A customized craftable longbow that requires materials from underwater dungeons to be crafted. Every time the string is plucked, or it fires an arrow, the bow generates a mirror image of the user at the location where it was triggered. This effect lasts 7 seconds. It has a 40% chance to deceive enemies of higher intelligence than him (ex: Spell casters), 80% for those of lower intelligence, 50% for equal. Cannot be fired from a mount or underwater.]

Full Set of Woven Splint Armor [Requires Wood Crafting and Rope Making to craft. Counts as light armor, resists energy spells, resists bleeding effects, functions as camouflage, takes fire damage in place of wearer, cancels fire damage while wet.]

6 Barbed Urchin Spine Javelins [Requires Wood Crafting and Tackle Crafting ((Normal Javelins only require Wood Crafting.)) These Javelins are tipped with hardened spines of giant sea urchins and can only be gathered underwater, usually by hunting the original owner. They have a 50% chance to reduce the movement and evasion abilities of struck targets by another third beyond the normal slowing effect of the barbed javelin. A critical strike on the foot will immobilize the target for between 10 and 60 seconds.]

Slickened Shank Short Spear [Requires Wood Crafting and Tackle Crafting. A spear with a long, bladed tip that is shaped and polished from the tail blade of the Tremlis Razor Eel, a miniboss within a small coral cave dungeon that can only be reached by diving. The oil of one of several particularly slimy deep water eels is also required. It slips into and out of enemies with far less than normal resistance, allowing for accelerated attack speed with thrusting strikes.]

Racial Skills: Gaia’s Voice [PvE enemy location radar.]
Skills-
Cooking- Anyone who spends most of their nights by a campfire needs to be able to make their own meals. But, camp cooking doesn’t include fancier tools.
Gathering- Living alone in the wilderness, it helps to be able to gather vegetables, herbs, fruits, and roots to supplement the diet of game meat and fish.
Field Medicine- He can make poultices and salves that heal over time as well as powders and oils that counter status effects or provide temporary boosts.
Sailing- He can handle a small sailing vessel
Fishing- He can handle hooks, lines, nets, fish traps, etc. as well as being able to detect greater details about what is under the surface of the water than your average player.
Hunting- He can hunt with bow, javelin, or spear
Navigation- He knows his location relative to places he has been. This allows him to find his way on land, underground, or on the water
Wood Crafting- He has the skill to build a small boat or log cabin from tree to finished product. He can also make bows, arrows, javelins, spears, furniture, etc.
Tackle Crafting- He can make anything he needs for fishing, even boat scale tackle.
Rope Making- Ropes for boats, bindings, tethers, reins, nets, twine, even crude bowstrings from raw materials.
Throwing- If it has a weight or a pointed end, he can throw it with reliable precision. If not, then he can still probably put it within a foot of his target.
Swimming- He can hold his breath for 7 minutes before his HP even starts to go down and he can move far faster in water than an unskilled swimmer. He can also transport one other player of lower weight but he can’t go under the surface with them, can’t fight while carrying them, and his swim speed is cut by about 40% with them on his back.
Deep Fighting- He can fight underwater, using melee weapons, without penalties.

Job- Hunter/Fisherman
Personality- Alfbane13371 is an industrious, independent and self-motivated person. Unafraid of trying new things, he still makes his decisions prudently and deliberately. He listens to his heart but makes his decisions with his head. That said, he carries the weight of being the black sheep of his family and a disappointment to them. He also tends to blame himself for any negative consequences that arise because of his decisions, assuming that he didn’t think things through well enough.

The bow is well suited to his deliberate nature but if pressed into close combat then his patient and thoughtful nature can be easily forgotten by those who witness the relentless brutality of his spear technique. While he uses the spear with great passion, he does not wear his heart on his sleeve. He may have a deeply rooted romantic streak but it has long since been buried under a mountain of necessity and planning.

As a final note, his most powerful driving motivation is his desire to clear the air of false rumors and untrue beliefs. The thought of so many people believing vile and untrue things, nevermind taking pleasure in talking about them or taking action based on them, is deeply abhorrent to him. If he could attack the rumors and lies around him directly, he would surely not stop until every one of them was ripped asunder.

History- Alfbane13371 was born and raised in the foothills of his home country, which he refuses to discuss, by both his own family and a couple branches of his extended family, who he refused to discuss or call after moving away at 19. He was familiar with garden and farm work as well as butchering and preserving food but it was his experience with carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and construction from helping with the family operation that allowed him to escape the nest so quickly. He quickly made good money working crazy hours for multiple companies. After a few years he had enough saved up for some correspondence education and a small farm. It turned out that he could take care of all his bills with the proceeds from a small, single acre operation and some over-winter carpentry and plumbing work.

Unfortunately, it also left him too busy for a social life. Without any desire to contact his intensely enmeshed family, and a driving work ethic, he found himself isolated. Talking to himself got boring fast. So, he started using the computer that he bought for school to start a social life online. He started with chat forums and then moved to online games when he found that nobody in the most popular forums knew anything about farming and he didn’t know anything about the games they were discussing.

Then he got a copy of Estaria. He was hooked. He spent every spare hour, and much of his winters, playing with the same intensity that he worked. His character grew rapidly, much like the development of his farming business, and it was a lot more fun. He even developed the social life he craved. His focus on hunting and fishing put him in a small minority of players that viewed the water as a valuable place to play instead of just an obstacle. This also meant that he never lacked for customers for the materials and crafted products he could produce.

But, shortly after he went to his first irl event on a special vacation that he took just for the purpose, his online life began to fall apart.

He entered a competition for cosplay creation along with quite a few other contestants. He had forgotten a multi-tool was in his jacket and it fell out while he was working on his entry. A staff member saw it and assumed that he was using an unauthorized tool on his cosplay. He hadn’t been, and they couldn’t prove that he had, but he wasn’t willing to make a big scene and steal the spotlight with cheap drama. So, while the staff and judges were discussing how to handle the matter, he quietly walked up and interrupted them for the purposes of withdrawing from the competition. When they asked him if he was admitting fault, he nodded toward the contestant who was the obvious crowd favorite, a girl sick enough to need a medical team on site, and replied. “It doesn’t matter. She’s better than me anyway.”

He waited only long enough to find out for sure that she had won before leaving. He didn’t find out until he read forum chatter that he had become the ugly flip-side to the inspiring story of the sick girl at the event. He looked for a chance to defend himself for days, then weeks. At length he found out that the event organizers had announced his withdrawal after he had left. However, they had declined to give any reason for his withdrawal and the staff member who saw the multitool had not been so tight-lipped.

Alfbane13371 learned quickly that people enjoy spinning bad rumors far more than listening to dull truths. After being banned from a few forums as soon as his first post was noticed he gave up on changing people’s minds. Solitude returned to his life like a deep winter snow, burying him in the dark and cold while his heart ached and slowly hardened.

After the incident at the irl contest the rumors about his conduct ran wild and his reputation suffered horrible mutilation online. The company that provided the staffing for the event tried to correct the misconceptions and stop the rumors but they persisted unabated. Because of these continuing rumors he was expelled from the guild that he helped found, The Wild Hunt, and was unable to get a party from then on. Being expelled from the guild hurt. But it was the bullying and abuse rumors that hurt the most. Some of them were… truly vile. He became a solo player, avoiding anything that he couldn’t solo.

He also took to lurking around the forums and chat sites, keeping tabs on the girl who beat him in that contest and the rumor mill. He resented the damage to his reputation, but he didn’t blame the girl. She had impressed him with her work and determination, just like she had impressed many others that day. He regretted not being able to honestly compete against her, or even congratulate her, that day and he couldn’t really blame anyone but himself for the reality of what happened. So, he kept an eye on her condition, wishing her well from the deepening shadow of his ever-growing and self-sustaining infamy.

He finally began avoiding the player community entirely, but he loved the game too much to quit. He started spending most of his time hunting in remote locations, some only reachable by either flight or boat, and became very adept at finding both rare materials and quiet places where he could develop his crafting skills. He stopped using boats, ammunition, or fishing gear that he didn’t craft himself. So long as he could replace it himself, he didn’t have to go to town and face his infamy.

Estaria(takes heavy inspiration from Log Horizon)

Helping bumps... but in a good way!

Sky Warriors: Birth Of An Army

@Dynamo Frokane So, I'm guessing that since you didn't give me firing clearance I didn't use any missiles? Which would put me still gaining altitude above the impending battle space with the incoming fighters solidly within my AA missile targeting range. Hmm. They probably won't expect much from a flying wing that looks like it's trying to get away and doesn't have a bounty.

Valkyria Chronicles ~ Walking the Royal Road

I am aware of the lack of interest. I've actually found the fan base for the Valkyria Chronicles as a roleplay setting to be... extremely limited and we never seem to find each other. But, the more refined and strengthened an idea becomes, the odds of it attracting attention go up too.

I actually had an idea inspired by Valkyria Chronicles that I've been working on lately. I won't try to derail your concept, it's solid as it is. But, I was thinking of incorporating tropical and arctic conditions with a large atoll and an associated archipelago as the terrain in mine. My concept involved a little bit of a time skip and some balance changes too, including an early propeller plane air force. But, I digress.

For practical purposes, unless you want to set it up as a tragic story of a failed evacuation, limited resources require a source of replenishment. Though, that tragedy angle might be something to look into. There's a large fan base for tragic and heavily dramatic storylines. If you took the core elements and moved them out of the fandom niche you might find a bigger audience.