Liliya

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

@Doc Doctor Post is up. Let me know if you want to skip right to them finding the shrine if this all went the way the Predator envisioned it or if you want to build up to that posting about hours going by and them gradually getting worried or whatever and sending out a search party. If this stuff was interrupted then of course we'll pick up from there, but otherwise it could turn into an awkward situation of several posts describing the creation of the shrine on my part and the ewoks just doing their business so whatever works for you again assuming it wasn't interrupted at any point.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

As the third fur ball entered the scene It decided that it was time. Four would perhaps have been more desirable, and the two alone hadn’t been sufficient, but this could work. It would act, and with It’s action begin the process which must always happen, the first step towards instilling in the lesser beings their sheer fragility in the hands of a God. It had been largely unconcerned at the pair’s actions. Animals mated, even the Yautja had sexual reproduction. It was never a dignified or clean process, and it certainly wasn’t here among the fur balls. Because of It’s vision being largely relegated to the thermal bands of visual light it had been confused at first as to which animal was which in their sprawling mass, and for a fleeting moment considered if the two had morphed into a single being in the way of microorganisms before relegating the thought to the back of It’s mind and largely losing interest, simply scanning the tree line for any new and more interesting stimuli.

That new and more interesting stimulus had come in the form of the third fur ball. It pulled itself up atop the tree branch and attempted to make It’s way down the tree as silently as possible on the side of the fur balls. They would be highly unlikely to mate next to a trap It had simply not managed to detect, and so It would touch the ground here. Should It manage to touch the ground it would simply step over the pair of lesser beings so small as not to come up to It’s thigh even if they were standing and move directly toward the cheering third participant. Should It not be stopped and the pair not notice It stepping over them wrapped up in their own business as they were It would spin around the third participant, moving behind the fur ball in a flash which would have been hard to keep one’s eyes trained on even were it visible, and attempt to come to a stop behind the third, newer being with Its arms lowered to the creature’s neck level, Its own legs crouched to reach downwards more easily and with more potential force.

Should none of this be stopped It would gear Its massive armored mitts around the third and newest lesser being’s neck as it stepped behind it and crouched, pivoting at the hip and working It’s hands and arms into a rightward turning vice with enough energy to break bone and collapse internal muscular and organ systems. It would attempt to cleanly turn the fur ball’s head around in a one hundred eighty degree turn within Its hands and, if successful, move the lesser beings corpse towards the two other currently mating fur balls.

The voice recorder and sound amplifying device It wore was designed to mimic the sounds made by those beings it might happen to be hunting. Something like using a duck call made by a hunter to attempt to bring more of the animals to their location, at least in theory. The Yautja were famous among the Stellar species for having technology that rarely served its proper purpose however, and this was no exception. What actually did echo out from the amplifier was a shrill, wet, reptilian hissing mockery of the cheering and rooting the lesser being had been making before it had been turned into a corpse, if it had been killed at all. What was worse was that with each passing step its lifeless body, head spun round to face the wrong direction, was raising higher and higher into the air until floating a full three feet off of the ground when within a foot or two of the two other fur balls.

They would not see the God lifting the lifeless corpse into the air, apparently couldn’t smell It and at best might see some obfuscated glimmer like that of the mirage around a blazing flame vaguely behind their suddenly levitating once friend and tribe member. They would hear the mock cheering like the mad laughter of a darkling apparition as it rose higher and higher in pitch, though with a decibel level low enough that nothing outside of their immediate area should be able to distinguish it as anything but the off pitch chattering of their own kind at a reasonable distance.

It wanted, needed the pair to see, to hear, to know the fear of the hunter in the wood. It would even let them scream a little before it would take Its right hand from the dead being’s neck and, assuming it had made it this far at all, simultaneously punch forward and downward into their writhing, screaming meat with a single clawed gauntlet on the aforementioned right hand and arm constructed of two horizontally placed scimitar like blades some eighteen inches in length each upon the outside of the forearm and wrist meant to spear the two together and allow them to meet the void in one another’s arms. This was done for an emotional reason, but not for the sake of the pair. It would be done, assuming it was done at all and that nothing up to this point had been interrupted, because the two would make for an excellent display in the shrine It would construct for the lesser beings to find.

It would let them scream, but not loud or long enough to alert the others. Let them think that the two were simply enjoying their time together, for now. Should all of this go to plan and nothing come out from behind It screaming or swinging wooden spears toward the floating fur ball with its head on the wrong way, and thus the invisible God directly in the way of the seemingly levitating corpse, It would collect up the bodies in a single arm and begin the ascent up the tree from which it had come and the long process of constructing the shrine. It would be quite a while if it hadn’t yet been noticed before the three would truly be feared missing rather than intentionally avoiding the tribe for their own entertainments.

This all depended on It managing to scale down the tree, step over the pair of distracted fur balls, sidestep behind the third intruding fur ball while reaching Its hands down toward the creature’s neck, break it with a violent pivot at the hip and with the hands and arms, before approaching the pair once more playing a devilish mockery of the cheering the third being had been making before being killed. It would raise the dead thing in Its hands as it stepped toward the still living pair and, should this not have been interrupted, would intend on getting them to see the display before releasing Its right hand from the dead fur ball while crouching at the hips and punching forward and downward with the clawed gauntlet mounted on Its right wrist and forearm towards the pair intending on spearing them together with the dual eighteen inch blades set horizontally on the wrist gauntlet. If all went according to plan It would then gather up the bodies and make it’s way along the trees to construct Its shrine for the village to find once they became truly worried about the missing tribe members. Should any of this not come to pass or be otherwise interrupted It would naturally have to change strategy and alter these plans.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

@Doc Doctor Post is up.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

“Ou-ah-tah tick, tick, tick, dlerbh,” It saw a convenient meal approaching the tree line some thirty meters away from the tree where it had been lurking in wait for just such an opportunity as this. Small things they were, hardly a fitting hunt for a God. They were however intelligent enough, having reached the barely higher than base animal understanding of crude tools of stone and wood and having developed the basic hunting patterns necessary to pass the requirements of the Clan, and so they were fit to serve as It’s rite of passage to Hish-qu-Ten. It would make it bad for these balls of glowing fluff unfit to serve even as meat to the Clan and yet somehow chosen as It’s rightful and necessary prey. It would ensure that they would know fear. The fear of the unseen hunter in the wood. The fear of God.

It could not be certain that they were incapable of smelling It out at a close distance. The furred species were often possessed of a highly developed capacity for smell. It could however be reasonably certain that they would not see It coming. The device used by the Yautja to disguise the hunters was advanced enough to keep most anything from seeing them coming without the benefit of some kind of artificial technology, usually dependent on the possession of something from far beyond this galaxy. Unless they were carrying something It had not noticed despite the several passages around the outskirts of the camp then it could be nearly entirely sure. It was not willing to settle for nearly sure. It would know the innate gifts and artificial constructs of the fur balls.

It went branch by branch, tree by tree over towards the fur balls approaching the outskirts of the supposed safety of their camp. Could It have broken a branch, sent an audible signal to the fur balls that something lurked in the woods? Of course. It also knew that they were not the only living things in this forest or on this planet. All manner of living things made their homes in these trees, and the breaking of a branch hardly surprised those used to living among a web of towering forest so thick as to block out view of the horizon. It was of a species more used to swamp than forest, but It was concerned not with remaining silent, but with remaining undetected. Noise was normal, even to be expected. When things became truly quiet it set the lizard brain to a panic, alerted a base instinct in the living to seek out the predator which had set the noisily industrious insects and other species to their forced, artificial seeming silence.

If not noticed through some advanced technology or highly developed capacity for smell It would make way over to the fur balls, never once touching the earth below. Their traps were laughably technologically backwards, but It had no intentions of being hit from right and left by falling trees or crushed from above by a boulder suspended by plant fiber ropes set to break against intruder's skulls. Would these things kill It? Perhaps not, but they would certainly force It to give up the hunt and retreat to the safety of It’s recon ship, something that would prove It was not meant to be Hish-qu-Ten and definitively force It to accept that the Gods among Gods would forever lord over It.

Should It manage not to set off any traps or be noticed as it approached, It would suspend via tree branches and It’s feet just above the fur balls, or as close to it as was possible given the terrain which would likely be near enough to reach out and grab them seeing as the things lived in tree villages, and It would wait and see. Seeing was everything to the predator regardless of it’s species. Should these beings notice as It was suspended a foot, two, even three above them and turn to fleeing It would reach out, grab them by the bases of their skulls and smash them into one another, or should they move far enough away use it’s retractable clawed gauntlets or even a thrown weapon or blaster to ensure that they did not make it back to the village alive. More importantly than killing them, however, was to see what they were capable of.

It was for all intents and purposes a shadow. It should not be visible to these beings, and if they noticed based upon It’s smell it would be telling indeed. They in that case would have to be hunted in a different manner than if they could not smell the predator in the wood, would have to be taken from downwind and with more care and precision than It was expecting. These were all assumptions on It’s part, and though valid must be backed up with evidence as is the way of a hunter. Once It knew the capabilities of the beings It could better hunt them, and math was the true science of the kill.

Should It be able to predict the beings patterns, movements, and their sensory awareness with absolute certainty than It would be one step closer to ensuring a successful hunt. Should It run in screaming and blasting, tearing the fur balls limb from limb before It had the understanding necessary to grasp what they were capable of It might well walk face first into a seemingly stone age tribe that happened to have access to advanced weaponry and for all It knew the kind of artificial sensors necessary to train a plasma sprayer at It’s center of mass from a half mile away. This was not a risk It would knowingly walk into, and so if not noticed before reaching the trees above the fur balls it would attempt to lean over them hanging from It’s feet as close to within arm’s reach as It could get depending on the terrain, prepared to strike the moment it noticed hesitation on the part of the fur balls. Otherwise It would watch and wait, the true goal being to gather evidence as to whether the fur balls could smell it from a few feet away.

The Australos Fight Camp

@Silver Carrot Post is up.

The Australos Fight Camp

An audible thud resounded across the courtyard. The viewers either sat in still silence, or produced barely noticeable giggles at the collision, and were they in a better contained area the sound would have echoed from the otherwise fairly silent walls. It didn’t, but it had brought Aighrit back into control over his sword arm. He’d nearly dropped the thing and would have if he hadn’t been the one to initiate the head butt. He’d had the knowledge of what was coming before it happened, and had made a conscious effort to ensure that the blade remained in his hand, but he had been put far more off-kilter than he was expecting he would have been. Her head was much harder than he had thought it would be, and he’d stumbled back several paces after the impact, already dazed and relatively off balance from the earlier blow to his nose. Another few blows like that and he’d be on the ground unconscious. His grasp over technique would be lessened, but it didn’t affect his confidence much. Fights always made their way to this point after a while. The point where neither fighter was at their best, but both were still capable of waving about blades and attempting to position well according to the opponent despite the pain.

It wasn’t so much that the pain turned off or went away, not really. More that it was consciously registered and accepted, relegated to a deeper part of the mind to make room for the thought and consideration which must still occur before one could rest and recover. It was easier to come back from this than from the total oblivion of being beaten half to death on the ground, a matter of days before feeling back to oneself over weeks or months. He was still smiling, but his eyes had lost their luster and descended into a state of dull, wet, glazed apathy, neither seemingly concerned nor particularly happy at the turn in the pair’s fortunes. Perhaps these were the eyes of a fighter resigned to the fact that either way this all went down there would be no easy way out and no happy endings. It was a different thing to know going into a fight that one’s likely outcome was to either beat an opponent senseless or in turn be beaten senseless by the very same person then it was to reach this point of reserved sensory awareness and awakened, lizard brained understanding that once more the being that was he had found itself on the meat trail.

He was a less capable fighter now then he had been at the beginning of the fight, the damage had racked up and taken its inevitable toll upon his mental faculties and his capacity to move and position himself with the precision of a fencer upon the sand. He would rather have danced and positioned and struck in twos and threes with all the softness of a mouse and the deft precision of a pit viper, but that part of the meeting had now passed. This was the second part, the raw, chaotic, demon violence the sand demands of a champion once form and deftness at blade begin to falter in the face of a skilled opponent and prolonged exposure to the pains and hurts of the protracted fight. Aighrit no longer attempted to lock eyes with his opponent, his own gaze trailing just left and down hovering at her right shoulder. Her blade was held in a defensive posture, and it was clear she was intending on using it to keep her distance from him, likely to give her the time to fully recover from the impact. He even thought he might have noticed a misstep, a lone instance of having judged the distance to the ground with a slight inaccuracy on her part.

There would be no form to his movements, no clear pattern or plan except to bring himself closer to Rags, and relatively quickly. He did not move in a straight line, but the jagged, wild stepping pattern of a drunk or one recently awoken from a deep slumber. At two separate times he actually moved backwards a half step during his advance, all the while his left hand holding his blade down and to his side. It was an oddly wild, looping thing to witness, and for all intents and purposes cast him as likely having taken a harder hit than any in attendance would have expected, but save for the occasional backstep he still seemed intent on moving toward Rags. Should she not charge him or move to retreat he would continue to advance in his injured fashion until getting to within a couple paces of her. If he managed to get to this point he would at long last lunge, not to her sword arm but to the outside of it, his own sword arm aiming upwards at his mid torso level and toward her shoulder before quickly, suddenly turning inwards and towards his left side, her right, with his opposite foot and hand hurtling toward her.

Should she have attempted to block the strike conventionally he would attempt to loop around the inside of her elbow with the outside of his own, assuming the blades of their swords would meet after she attempted to block the hit, weaving his wrist and the blade held by it past her right bicep and upwards toward the sky, while stepping forward with his own right foot and simultaneously pull forward on her right arm with his left arm, seeking to pull her forcibly into the punch he was aiming toward her own nose. Assuming she had allowed him to close and attempt to strike at and wrap up her right arm with his left she would still have her opposite hand to guard with, and her legs to attempt a kick as he advanced, but he was confident that if he managed to get her blade arm wrapped up in his own he would be able to meet her face before she could realize and attempt to do much but put her own guard arm into the way of his punch. It was certainly possible that she could kick him in the groin, but her lead foot would have difficulty getting past his own as he had attempted to step to the outside of her body, and it took longer to understand that he had attempted a grab and was moving forward with the opposite foot while punching and to respond to it with a rear leg kick to the groin on her end then it did to simply step forward while punching on his end. This was all assuming she allowed him to close with her, should she have instead charged him or simply evaded him his strategy naturally would have to be altered.

The Australos Fight Camp

@Silver Carrot Sorry about the delay, I've been swamped with Halloween stuff. I have the day off tomorrow and will be getting caught up on all my stuff.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

@Doc Doctor Sorry about the delay, I've been swamped with Halloween stuff. I have the day off tomorrow and will be getting caught up on all my stuff.

BattleBots, Trading Cards & Dashball (New Universe)

@Dynamo Frokane I am willing to learn the systems and moderate, so if that's what you're looking for I'd be happy to get involved in that way. I'd be willing to get involved on the development front as well, but you might want to hold off on that until we've had a chance to actually catch up on the maths of your systems and had some conversations on the system. I've already gone over the list of cards you have up in your Collection of Champions (which is pretty d*mn impressive for a single person doing all the mechanics) and I've done some preliminary napkin math matches to try and get a feel for the flow of the game and the different decks, but the best way to figure it all out is probably to just talk numbers right? Shoot me a DM of the mechanics whenever's convenient to you and I'll get on it.

EDIT: That goes for all three of the games, I just haven't seen any examples of the other two but did find the cards.

BattleBots, Trading Cards & Dashball (New Universe)

@Dynamo Frokane I saw that Mr. Kuro vs. Kyogi match and immediately thought, "I want to get in on that!" I've considered doing a more Hearthstone like card game through Arena myself, but I loved Lost Kingdoms and I like the direction you took the concept in your game (at least what I saw of it in that match). I also love robotic battles and blitzball, so if you run the card game or launch Shibuya as an arcade with all two or three games I'm totally in. I have no idea what Inazuma is but I played through all of the BlitzBall in Ten, so I'd be quite interested in getting something like that going on the site.