The Bearded One

Torn Across the Rift

I keep having writer's block, but hopefully I break through soon.

Torn Across the Rift

"Hmph, in my experience information is the heart and soul of survival... of course, my viewpoint is a bit skewed, information being my trade. I'm John, by the way. Sergeant Johnathan Fitzgerald; information brokered, sites reconnoitred, provisions acquisitioned, allies overly-watched, manships marked, and dragons baited, at your service... Technically retired, but in this economy who can stay idle?"

“Now, two neat little tidbits; first, I can probably recreate your crime scene if you give me a few days, and second... I might not know where I am, but I do know where I'm not... specifically, I am not in my own universe. Lots of reasons, none very interesting, no time to explain. There's an ornery dragon with a grudge outside; we likely have minutes before it starts ripping apart the castle."

"And it's a fire dragon by the way; it's just got a fondness for avalanches. The fire's probably methane, but I wouldn't rule out hydrogen. Dragon's approximately 60 meters in length, 10 meters body diameter, 100 meters wingspan. The scales are actually transparent and, based on their electricity resistance and the damage patterns to a few around the mouth, they are most likely carbon laminate... that's lots of very thin layers of diamond to you laymen. Red coloration suggests high red cell count- it's built for high altitudes. Scales are sparse or non-existent on the wing membrane, the insides of the joints, and around the top of the nose."

"From there what I can tell you is basically just speculation, but it's speculation based on a hundred or so lab grown weapons that all shared a lot of similarities to this thing. I've got...” John surveys the group around him “...four ideas on how to take it down. Only one's guaranteed to be lethal, so if you want to ask it some questions you should get your chance... Oh, didn't I mention? It's relatively intelligent. And vindictive. Can't forget vindictive. And I shot it. A lot.”

“...It really wants me dead."

Torn Across the Rift

John followed the two to the chamber of the altar, and viewed a strange assortment of individuals arrayed about the room. A feathered damsel, an armored dame, a pair of twins, a soldier from a type 4 civ (probably another local), a fifty something whose features imply kindred to Zesiro, an older gentleman whose rougher clothes signify a type 3 civilization of origin, a soldier from what looks like a very early type 4, a cloaked man with the telltale signs of a heavy drinker, a man out of a fantasy novel, the man who had set himself on fire... and John's earlier acquaintances Zesiro, Gemma and Tyrael.

John began to open his mouth to remark on the ragtag group, when his sweeping gaze began to take in the building itself. As dilapidated as it had seemed on the outside, the damn thing was revealed to be a whole lot worse on the inside. John looked around at the castle, calculating its mass. John had never really paid attention in magical theory courses, had slept through most of it in fact, and now he was wishing that he had.

A mage could burn up their own body in order to extend their limits. That was the theory, but of course, it wasn't recommended or actually taught, and the calculations where only shown to show people how bad of an idea it is. According to John's quick calculations, he might be able to fix the castle... if he didn't mind burning up so clean he was turned to vapor in the process. That is, if his calculations where correct, which they might be if the stone was as dense as he thought, and the walls as thick as he thought and the castle as many stories as he thought and the calculations were done in the way that he thought. For all he knew, he could burn up and just collapse the roof on everyone.

So when Zesiro's brother took action instead, John was quite relieved. He was rather less relieved to know that the only thing standing between the avalanche and everyone else was a dome of corpses made by a single man, which, in his experience, should be completely impossible.

When the shaking stopped, John spoke "...Alright then. Who's in charge here? There's an irritable lizard outside that I've got some tasty information on; you can thank her for our sudden superfluity of snow by the way. Share some winter gear and I'll share what I know?" he finished off with a roguish grin, holstering his weapon swiftly.

Torn Across the Rift

Awwww...

Ah well, I guess it can't be helped. Hope things turn out arright for ya, and hope you can come back soon!

Sorry about the roughness of my post. It was a kind of "anything to get me where things are happening" dealie.

Torn Across the Rift

As John raced towards the ruined castle his lungs and throat burned in the frigid air, his legs burned with acidic buildup, and, oddly enough, a man standing at the entrance to said castle burned with actual flames.

Now, while the Legion's modular training can generally prepare a soldier for when the midden strikes the rapidly rotating device, there are some situations so sudden and unexpected that you cannot possibly examine your modules fast enough.

It can be argued that running across a frozen mountain range in summer gear, with an avalanche bearing down, a dragon overhead, a man undergoing spontaneous combustion ahead, a sudden and inexplicable fire sprouting up behind, and a man throwing himself into said fire before telling you to continue on into the castle you had been headed towards anyway is not conducive to rational thought. It could probably be argued that such a thing would cause a man to choose to face the avalanche instead of whatever thing inside the castle had incited such madness as to make men burn themselves alive without a trace of fear.

After a brief pause to consider rescuing the madman who had leapt into the flame, John shrugged his confusion to the world, and continued to dash towards the castle. He stopped only once more, to stick his tongue out at the dragon and shoot it once more, this time in the wing, and was gratified to see the appendage twitch uncontrollably for a fraction of a second. He then began to quietly follow the burned man and the one who carried him into the structure.

Torn Across the Rift

Sorry about this week! Got kinda hectic.

Torn Across the Rift

So I'mma try to get a post up sometime tomorrow. Not sure exactly what I'll do. Probably something along the lines of "John waited out the avalanche and then went into the castle"

Torn Across the Rift

It was most definitely not going well.

Outgunned, out maneuvered and out of options, John found himself suddenly running a race against an avalanche, with the castle serving as both center point and finish line.

The fastest non modified human on record could run a blistering 39 kilometers per hour, just around 24 miles per hour. Clocking in at around 29 kilometers per hour at his top speed, John isn't the fastest human on record, though he is somewhere in the top fifty percent. An average avalanche, on the other hand, can reach speeds well exceeding 100 kilometers per hour, with the upper limits somewhere around 300 kilometers per hour- roughly eight times as fast as the fastest human ever recorded.

Needless to say, it was not going to be a close race.

If John had not taken his meds then just about now he would be a terrified wreck at the prospect of being buried alive under hundreds of tonnes of snow and rock. For now the medication lifted him above the fear- made it seem less like a screaming lunatic raving directly in his ear and more like hearing the echoes of said lunatic from across town- that is to say, he knew it was there, but it was somebody else's problem. With time against him, John continued to run, all the while looking for a sturdy bit of building to hide inside of, a heavy rock to cling to, or, failing that, a crevice to crouch in.

The avalanche was coming, and he would rather not be swept off the mountain.

Torn Across the Rift

"Stubborn thing, ain't you?" John muttered, slitting his eyes at the dragon. He reviewed his count; around 16 shots left- call it 7 at current levels, since he'd been raising both the voltage and current with every shot.

At this point, John decided that it was fairly unlikely that he'd hit a stun or kill threshold even using all the power he had left in one shot- even if he could get the stunner to reach that threshold without burning it out halfway through the delivery. He stops walking and squares himself against the dragon, steadying his feet at a shoulder width apart, then reaches down into his supply of pills and pops back a tablet of chalky courage.

John could see better than most animals, even with one human eye weighing him down, and was certain he saw better than the dragon. Looking up at the beast on its perch he could see a spark of what could be called... well, maybe not intelligence, but certainly cunning. An animal too smart to be scared away by punishing lightning, but not logical enough to move on to easier prey when it was harmed... and it could tell it was him that was the source of the pain- he could see it in the way it looked directly at him.

This, of course, changed things; though not as much as it would have if John hadn't spent the last few minutes shooting the damn thing. Normally, this would be the time to crack out the first contact protocols... However, seeing as he had been shooting at it and probably pissing it right off, counting out prime numbers and drawing Pythagorean's theorem would probably not be the most helpful thing to do.

Therefore, John drew what he thought of was a healthy compromise, and shot it again. As the beast roared a long loud roar to follow up its three bursts of flame, lightning lashed out between the small weapon and the forked tongue of the creature, cutting its intimidating roar short with a pained yelp. Then, sure that he had gotten the creature's full attention, John proceeded to do what in nature is the equivalent of giving a predator the middle finger- that is to say, he whipped out his 'self' and proceeded to piss in the dragon's direction. The stream, and John's steady glare lasted for about half a minute, and then he put his trousers back in place, turned smartly about, and began a brisk pace towards the castle. A brisk pace which soon evolved into a run.

Torn Across the Rift

Gonna try to post today