Raid

MONUMENT.

And we're moving-moving-moving.

I'm back - with a cyberpunk conspiracy interest check!

Yes.

Question: how will our characters have contact with each other? Are they associated through the same job, group, ect? Or would we create something more of a sandbox where the actions of the characters don't necessarily come together right away, but eventually meet?

MONUMENT.

lol, I was totally wondering if ya'll came out naked or not.

MONUMENT.

Mud trips over a root and runs into a tree. Breath gone and balls aching, he slumps to the ground. The leaves are slick from the morning chill. He pulls his cape closer over his bare shoulders. Aside from his fundoshi and leather shin guards to protect against creatures with a tendency to bite at ankles and thorns, he wears nothing else. Something stirs in him, naked, that’s the word, but to him, Naked isn’t a word. She’s a person. Naked was the best hunter in their group. She’s the one who taught him how to walk in the forest, feet feeling for twigs and dried leaves. He taught her how to trap.

Yes, Naked was her name, not what he was. Her belly grew fat and round, the skin stretching from Baby. Dude had been so happy. Said he wanted his name to be Father, instead, but Dude broke his ankle and died from blood poisoning before anyone ever called him Father.

Able to stand without wincing, Mud jogs towards the shore. The water doesn’t move or create sounds like some of the waterfalls he’s come upon. The ground changes from sinking mud to tough sand and the trees thin and small brushes become more prominent. He hangs back, covered in shadows. He scans the shore. Nothing. He looks farther out. Maybe. Something. Clamping his spear between his teeth, he starts to climb. The twisting formation of the tree makes it an easy climb. He peers out over the side of the tree, back at the Still Sea, inches higher, checks again.

Yes.

He slips and rips skin on his toes clambering for purchase.

“Yes,” he breathes over the wood shaft of his spear.

A whoop builds in his throat. An accurate burst of elation, but he presses his forehead into the smooth bark of the tree. Tick’s voice saying, “Use your words, Mud.” He whispers everything he’s wanted to tell anyone since Naked and Baby died. About the lumbering Jakabo who’s been the closest thing to human he’s known these last two, lonely years and how he wants it to hold him, like Naked held Baby. How it took three days to burn the bodies because of the rain. How he hasn’t gotten any new scars. What it was like to find the third monument. How he knows the answer to the riddle, but hasn’t been brave enough to move on.

Mud shimmies up to the thickest branch to watch, spear balanced over his lap. He strains, hands braced on the wood beneath him, when he catches the water swallowing up two figures. They’re more than 400 meters out. He was never a fast runner. He bites his cheek. He waits, twirling spirals and circles into the tree with his fingers. Maybe its squares and geometrics—He doesn’t pay attention. He watches them. Watches them help one another. Watches them talk to one another. Watches them smile at one another. He doesn’t want to watch them. He doesn’t dare close his eyes. They might disappear.

MONUMENT.

Part of me thinks I should wait to post and then the other parts like: "oh, hell, I'm not the only one who needs distracted as we wait for more posting/action."

So, by the time ya'll wake up, they'll be a post for your entertainment. (It's day time here in the land of the rising sun.)

Incarceron - The Tales of New Ancora

I don't know what we need to generate more posting, but I figured a dancing banana couldn't hurt.

MONUMENT.

I look forward to sitting back and watching the drama unfold. Probably have my character instigate some of it as well~

MONUMENT.

Mud stays low to the ground, crouching above his kill. A lesser scol paces in the shadows. The scales along its back flake and crack. Its thick skin protecting the bones of its ribs. He feels for his knife and one of the haunches of the bunny. He tears through bone and flesh and sinew, blood slick on his fingers. He pops the joint free. The scol stops. Its blue eyes cut through morning mist, cold and creeping in the depths of the forest. Leaving the mangled limb on the ground, Mud gathers the remaining pieces of his kill and eases back. The earth eases between his toes. Leaves brush his ears and neck. Mud wears Tick’s leather cape—took it after he died because what use is a fine cape to a corpse that will be eaten in the night by scavengers anyways? The scol focuses on the free meal rather than on attacking Mud. He stands and watches the switching of its tail. He needs to leave. He stays and watches until the scol licked its paws cleaned before cleaving another haunch from the bunny’s body.

When Mud reaches his camp, his breakfast is missing three of its six legs and the fur is so mangled that he doesn’t bother trying to skin it before he puts it over the fire. Tick taught him how to snap two rocks together over wood shavings to make fire. Rock creates fire. Spectacular.

“Spectacular,” he says, sitting by the fire. There is no smoke from wet leaves or young wood. He waits for the flesh of his meal to crack. He traces the edges of the tattoos curving down on to his collarbone and chest. A cooka looks down at him. Its feathers puff around its body. He thinks its beautiful. Does it think he’s beautiful? The meat cooks. He eats. He stands. He stops. He could sit there all day. Could find a tall cliff and jump. Could track down the meanest scol. Get lost in a stampede of nells. He moves on, kicking dirt over the fire and leaving the bones to be picked through. The rodents will find he left no marrow in the bones for them.

The rykes find him: spear on his shoulder, ready to thrust forward. He shivers, allowing his muscles to loosen. They caw in coo in their flock. Their sizes are middling, but each of their feather bristle and they hop from branch to ground, nipping at each other wings. They should still be at the shallows of the Still Sea. Mud likes to watch them dance, wings lifted high. It mimics the bird of his tattoos. Now, he can’t. The rykes forced from their home are not happy creatures. They cocks their heads and caw after him as he runs back to their abandoned nests and the Still Sea. He shouldn’t run. He’s run before. Torn up his feet so that he couldn’t walk for almost a week. The rkyes are fussy creatures. They don’t need a reason to flee. It could be nothing. It’s probably nothing. So he runs faster.

MONUMENT.

Lol, What @Samara says, she gets.

I'll have my post soon enough as well. Though, don't hold back any replies. My character will play outside of the immediate sphere of things for a bit anyways.

MONUMENT.

Pretty good. I've got a few days off to look forwards to. It's Golden Week here in Japan so I get a break from teaching.