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quite uneventful rolled 2 6-sided dice:
2, 4
Total: 6 (2-12)
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 Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:37 pm
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saedusk rolled 2 6-sided dice:
3, 6
Total: 9 (2-12)
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:42 pm
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Taki-di rolled 2 6-sided dice:
5, 5
Total: 10 (2-12)
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:51 pm
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Nictor Sabbat
HP: 20/20 + 4-3=1/5
Damage: 5+1-1=5
In Training: Endurance 0/1
Trinkets/Artifacts/Items: Military Grade Weapon (2d6 + 1)
Adept Artifact Defense A (style A -3 damage taken, 4x per battle) 1/4
Novice Support Trinket, Style A (Heals another troll by half their maximum hp, 1x per battle) 0/1
Advancements: 6
Minibosses Defeated: 2
Quote: Miniboss: 18-5= 13/30 If you rolled a 5, take 3 dmg.
If it seemed like his headache had abated, the the sudden blaring alarms brought it back full force, fully body cringing as the noise stabbed into his ears. He gave a small half whine at the pain, blinking to try and focus. This was going to be extremely unpleasant. Well, it already was and already had been the whole time, but the point was this was a level awful that was just extraneous.
He’d only had to hear these ship alarms once before but this was so much worse than the first time.
Moving through to the next room they were met with something other than burning lusii. They were met with the well equipped crew members, the ones that didn’t fold and give like tearing a piece of paper. Ones whose features had distorted unnatural, growths and distensions, unique to each of them and equally horrifying. Nictor naturally wanted to recoil, and actually did when the sound of Bombee’s weapon cracked the air, managing to cut into blaring alarms and make Nictor’s arms jerk. But nothing was close to him, the swing was useless, and looked, he had to look, ahd to be sure what had caused that noise. But that wasn’t okay because as startling as it was the real threat was over there, over there, turn around, turn back around-
Nictor whipped backa round, head pounding but ignorant of it as survival demanded he defend, the sirens pressing an extra note of raw fear into him. He was off balance, he could barely hold onto a thought, and there was a troop charging at him. Its hands were bared like claws, jaw hanging loose with elongated teeth, and bubbles of something coating its skin. And it was headed straight for him.
It was just within range when Nictor struck, the impact derailing the troop’s momentum to the side and bursting some of the skin pustules, making a thick bloody looking liquid splash out. Well that was different. The troop didn’t seem done yet thought as it lashed out at Nictor before he could block but that shield, he’d nearly forgotten about it, shimmered to life, making the blow bounce off, leaving the creature snarling in frustration and giving Nictor a chance to hit again, right across the throat and the thing gurgled as it went down, still reaching to claw at him as blood bubbled up its esophagus.
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artificial bones rolled 2 6-sided dice:
3, 3
Total: 6 (2-12)
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:58 pm
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quite uneventful rolled 2 6-sided dice:
6, 4
Total: 10 (2-12)
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:31 pm
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Taki-di rolled 2 6-sided dice:
5, 6
Total: 11 (2-12)
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:38 pm
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Nictor Sabbat
HP: 20-2=18/20 + 1-1=0/5
Damage: 6+1-1=5
In Training: Endurance 0/1
Trinkets/Artifacts/Items: Military Grade Weapon (2d6 + 1)
Adept Artifact Defense A (style A -3 damage taken, 4x per battle) 1/4
Novice Support Trinket, Style A (Heals another troll by half their maximum hp, 1x per battle) 0/1
Advancements: 6
Minibosses Defeated: 2
It wasn’t the first time the emptiness in his head grew menacing. It was by nature menacing, it meant he couldn’t think right, that something was wrong. It meant he wasn’t thinking himself in circles, sure, but the only reason for it was to prevent those circles because it would be far too much. It was survival. It was the need to live and knowing he could ruin it for himself, in some deep dark part of himself. The paranoia, the anxiety, the jumpiness, the instinct won out over all else and drowned the thoughts out viciously.
They didn’t go away though. Just put off, set aside.
Except certain moment, the trickle of muted horror would gain hold and dig in. Like watching blood and chunks leak from the mouth of the troop he’d struck down. Decked in an old uniform and body armor, most of its liquids and flesh intact. All of the meat was still on its bones but in the wrong places.
It had looked more alive than the others Nictor had seen.
And now it wasn’t alive at all.
His breath hitched, his processing zoned out for a second, limbs beginning to lock up. He’d hit a troll in the throat before. Toothy. The blueblood that had tried to teach him to fight and that disaster had ended a similar way. Except Nictor wasn’t checking to see if the dead troop was okay. There wa sno way they were okay.
They tried to kill him and he killed it.
Nictor didn’t hear it until the last second. Every fiber of his being was focused on that pool of spreading blood, the unmoving morphed face with cheek pressed to the floor. His mind was curling into it, something was crying and it might have been him but his eyes were still dry maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure.
He didn’t hear it until the last second though.
His head began to turn, feeling sick and not all the way there, the sense of reality being wrong was becoming too poignant and it made him slow to react, but something was there and he needed to be in his body and doing something but he wasn’t-
And then it was on him.
Nictor couldn’t even make a noise as they went down, just a strangled intake of breath as the weight of the creature bore down on him. The shield shimmered around him, making spots flare in his vision, only catching hints of teeth, extra eyes where they shouldn’t be, ratty old hair falling over him, shadows too stark and skin too bright and close. The moment that something was touching him, fear roared back to the forefront of his mind. Like forgotten waves ebbing on the beach but when you looked back up a tidal wave was coming in.
He was struggling as the went down, lashing out with hands be he had no good angle for the bo staff but he couldn’t let it go. Except the back of his hand struck off a console and the shield flared, but the impact, the angle, forced his fingers to release as his wrist twisted and caught between the machinery and the heavy body carrying him to the ground.
It was too late, the weapon was gone.
They hit the ground hard. The shield sparked and burned around him as fingers tried to dig in but could find no purchase. Nictor already jerking and pulling away, trying to half turn and half curl into himself. This one had more mass, more motor control, held him down too tight and for all that the shield was stopping it from damaging him, he could not escape. He reached desperately for his staff but it was rolling away and the farther it got the more his throat closed off. His arm jerked, trying to some how make it come back, to extend itself, anything, but he could only glance and see the distance growing and know he was unarmed. A vicious, blood curdling snarl came from no more than a foot away. He couldn’t get his staff and he needed to look, needed to see what was coming-
The wave hit shore and everything was submerged.
Inside he could still hear the keening broken cry of someone watching something they loved get wrent in two but they had no power to stop it. His chest was tight, a horrible uncomfortable heat overpowering his limbs, feeling like a low burning fire. Sound drilled into his skill, his head felt like an explosion in slow motion, he couldn’t- he just couldn’t-
The creature reared back and Nictor’s efforts to escape double but it wasn’t enough leeway. Grabbing and pushing and squirming just made the thing angrier and when hands slammed back down, the shield shimmered bright, bright, then burst into shines that spotted his vision, punching white holes into his already distorted sight, like the edges of objects weren’t real and wavered in and out of reality and as the pressure of meaty hands finally pressed in and the gaping maw was finally dropping towards him.
There was no way out.
Nictor breathed in.
His hands spasmed and jerked and struck, grabbing onto throat and face and twisting with every ounce of strength inside him. It was unbalanced but not enough to throw it off, hands rasped and scraped at Nictor, one catching his face-
Nictor pulled and twisted and slammed the head into the surface again.
The mutated troll on top of him snarled low and long, the sound rattling, raspy but thick and bubbly, deep in their lungs and unnatural to the ears.
Nictor jerked and slammed the head again.
Finally the creature was pulling away and Nictor was scrambling upright, trying to pull away from the console and the creature, except it only pulled away enough to lunge. Fear, fear clogged his senses, overrode everything, drowned everything under its force, it was going to get him, even if he pulled away he couldn’t get far enough fast enough trapped trapped trapped-
Nictor lunged back.
And then it was done.
He was already scrambling to put some distance, tried to stand but his legs were weak. It felt like his entire body was pulsing in time with the sirens wailing in his ears, so instead he curled into himself, eyes almost unseeingly hooked on the corpse with its skull split open against the metallic surface.
Frantically he looked for movement, for the pull of air in its lungs or reach of its fingers but it was still. It couldn’t get him. It couldn’t get him.
The face had an extra eye, teeth ripping open the sides of its mouth, distorted veins that stood out too starkly.
And it was dead. He killed it.
The fear had pulled back, reached into himself and settled under his skin instead of seeping out of him, gave way just enough for the screaming under the water to hold meaning again.
He couldn’t look away.
His breath was hitching and tears were blurring his vision, the body was off him but he felt the pressure still, the scrapes on his hand from rubbing over those teeth. Something wet dripping down his face.
His hands.
He killed it.
Felt the movement stop.
Felt the press of relief for just a second layered under the burning of his senses.
He didn’t know why he shuffled closer, just that he did. Looked at the blood smeared behind where it rested. He put that there. Looked at the face and saw lines and knew he would find flesh under his nails. Looked down to that still unbreathing chest, waiting. Waiting for nothing. It would not move.
And that’s when his eyes caught on something. A shiny metallic something hanging around its neck, freed from under it’s half open jacket in their struggle and laying innocently on that still chest. He shouldn’t care, it shouldn’t matter, he should look away, be grateful those teeth weren’t sinking into his neck and tearing veins and muscle. Be grateful it was dead.
But the shine of metal distracted him and he read.
It was a name.
It was a dog tag.
Punched into it in impersonal little letters was MAAGES OURLES.
Nictor blinked sluggishly at that.
He had killed Maages Ourles.
“I-I…” He breathed. He didn’t know if it was an attempt to apologize or to state the obvious or what but the noise escaped him nonetheless. His vision blurred, yet he could see the name clearly in his mind, could still see the grotesque face bearing down on him. They were the same. Those two different things were the same.
For a moment, everything seemed to drop away. Like reality sloughed off of him, leaving him inside a void.
Maybe it was the noise. The way his skull felt like it was splitting from the sirens echoing through the deck halls and rattling inside his bones. Maybe it was the sting of wounds, aches and bruises and blood on his hands. Maybe it was the pressure that had been building, that had gotten some give before Maages attacked and hadn’t gotten a chance to be put away so now it was leaking and starting to spill and couldn’t be plugged and dried fast enough. Maybe it was just about time.
But something tumbled and clicked into place and Nictor couldn’t feel his skin or his breath or the pounding in his brain or the way his body trembled or how his hand began to reach for that damning tag.
A name. A troll. A, a living breathing thinking troll. Nictor had only seen a monster. All trolls were monsters though. Trolls were dangerous and vicious and would trick and hurt. It was something he’d learned as a child and had colored his every day since, scared and frantic and just trying to survive. He was trying to be better about it, not be so scared, but that fact had remained. But Kolako wasn’t a monster. Mahmud and Hemera and Polair weren’t monsters.
This troll had looked like one though. All of the monsters lining these halls had looked like monsters. Troll shaped monsters. Things of nightmares, the things he thought he saw in the shadows of trolls he met. Except these, these were real. These were the actual monsters, and before this, they were just trolls. Like anyone else. He had just accepted that these were trolls and they were monsters that looked like this but he hadn’t really thought about it. Hadn’t processed what that meant.
Somehow hadn’t understood that they weren’t always like this.
They could have been anyone, could have been Kolako or Mahmud or Hemera or Polair. Could have been someone kind, someone that didn’t deserve this.
Nobody deserved this.
And he’d killed them.
The moment ended, the clarity evaporated like mist under the hot sun as everything crushed in around him at once.
Nictro yanked his hand away from where it was almost touching the body like it had been burned. He was shaking, everything was shaking. His chest heaved, trying to take in air but the breaths were too short. He was numb, numb and listing away but at the same time pressure and sensation was consuming him, overloading everything. His fingers dug into his arms, harder and harder and he was starting to sob with every shuddering exhale of breath.
They had been alive once, a troll that could have been anyone, but then they were dead and they became this and now they were dead again.
Oh no. No.
He wheezed out a sob, hands coming to press into his face instead.
Too much. Too much. It was finally too too much.
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:53 pm
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Perhaps, as the first shambling remain of some pathetic troll came towards Nictor, she could have jumped in. She was within range, whereas Bellen(who was shooting a far too worried look in Nictors direction) was farther away and unable to make a move before the daywalker was upon their failure of a squadmate. She could have jumped in, but she stayed put. Let him bleed, take a bite or two from those rotted and jagged teeth, the pain would teach him something, and the blood poisoning wouldn't kill him. It was like when she was young and hungry and cold, and her lusus refused to let them go home until she had taken down their prey. That pain and misery, compounded over sweeps, was what made her strong today. Nictor needed to learn that, he needed to experience that pain before he could grow. How else would he come into the body he inhabited if he never came to terms with his true nature?
The crack of staff against brittle bone and fleshy chunks splintered the chaos of the battle. Zeylla raised a brow as she watched the doubly dead troll crumple to the ground like a deflated elastic airsack. Always full of little surprises, this yellowblood. When it came down to harm to himself or harm to an aggressive attacker, it would seem that Nictor was more than capable of reaching into that deep well of violence. Zeylla had only truly begun to explore her own instinctual
nature, she knew that going from closed in and restricted to free and without restraint was an extreme change, but it had been easy for her to adjust. It was in her blood, that pulsing need to rend and reduce those in her way, and she had fought it back too long. Letting loose had been a piece of cake for her, Nictor evidently needed a corner to be pressed into before he let go.
She would remember that.
Her brows quickly furrowed as she watched Nictor recede again, already reverting back to the pathetic dirtgrub that he was. She felt the sharp retort on the tip of her tongue but paused as the final mutated remains of something that once had been trying to survive an inevitable end moved in on her shellshocked, weakwilled troll. She swallowed the words she had meant to direct vehemently in Nictors direction. She wanted to see how he responded this time.
His response time was pathetically slow, and the undead trooper was soon on him, grabbing and snapping at him as they fell into a mess of limbs on the ground. She walked calmly around the ensuing struggle and stepped up beside Bellen. She could see the need to protect and coddle in the older trolls eyes. She refused to let anyone intervene though. She stood slightly in front of Bellen and made it clear that this would happen, though she did verbally add, "You can get him if he's looking like he might bleed out before we get back to the shuttle," the comment was something she would not offer to any others, but Bellen deserved that much respect at least, though Zeylla was not above stopping her if she tried to jump in. She saw the look in the older yellowbloods eyes though, and her hand slipped back to hold her wrist, perhaps to offer comfort but also to stop her from doing anything else.
Her eyes moved back to Nictor, who was struggling to escape, his bo staff rolling out of reach as his shield system struggled to keep up against the barrage of the clawing, slamming fists of the undead. Zeyllas eyes narrowed to slits as she watched the yellowblood reach again and again for the staff, even as his shield failed and the daywalker intensified its attack, now unhindered by pesky technology. It was now, truly, a life or death moment. Would Nictor make the move, or would he not?
Zeylla could feel Bellen stiffen, felt her jerk as if to make a move to help. Zeylla squeezed her wrist, not threateningly, like she would with most, but...gently. Almost reassuring, and as the yellowblood continued to make a move to help their struggling squad member, she slipped her hand down to grasp Bellen's hand, interlacing their fingers to give herself a better grip(her hands were so warm, that amazing warmth she lacked) as she pulled her back, eyes insisting that Bellen let this happen. It had to happen.
The crack of a skull rang out again, and she watched as Nictor dug deep into that well and pulled out the rawest part of himself. His hands gripped tightly on the face and neck of his enemy, nails biting deep into rotted flesh, crushing a useless windpipe as he slammed the creatures head against the console again. The wet thwack and the gurgling growls of the daywalker were like the notes of a song that Zeylla could appreciate, brought to life by the hands of their underdog.
Yet, he left his symphony unfinished, and scrambled back into his safe zone, eyes wild and moist with tears, face and hands stained with coagulated blood; his body shaking. She was almost ready to step in, sick of his pathetic nature and becoming impatient, but the daywalker had other ideas. Its skull was concave on one side, one eye sagging back in the leftovers of a broken socket. the two others were milky but locked on their prey. The creature lunged, and to Zeylla's surprise, the yellowblood lunged back.
He swiftly put down the undead, his hands more than capable of crushing its throat and sending it into the ground, smashing its head in one last time before falling back from the unmoving corpse. She wondered if he felt that exhilaration she had felt when she let herself go. The power in taking something and snuffing it out, erasing it from existance. Did he feel that deep-seated heat boiling inside him, warm like one of Chiara's amber swill?
She wasn't sure, but she watched him as he moved to crouch beside his kill. His eyes searching the body, but for what? It was a body, nothing more than meat and fleshy organs long rotted and bones brittle and weakened by space travel. There was no troll left in that thing, and yet Nictor was wet-eyed and wobbling above the corpse, hand stretched out like he might touch it and it would wake up, alive and well.
His hand quickly shot back though, eyes trained on something as he began to stutter; eyes welling up and spilling over with fresh tears, leaving streaks in the grime and blood on his face. Zeylla scowled, her hand slipping out of its hold on Bellens, and she stepped forward, boots clicking as she made long strides towards the sobbing mess that was, moments ago, a perfect example of troll strength and power. He was curled up, weak and crying, and she would have none of it. She kicked his bo staff so that it rolled towards him, collecting spilled blood before thumping softly against the dead body.
"Get up," she growled, her words echoing those that her lusus had used on her, "This is the way life is, it's not easy and it's not gentle. It's hard and cold and brutal, and if you don't learn, it's going to chew you up and spit you out," yet, Nictor didn't move, he just hid his face in his hands and took shuddering breaths.
Zeylla had no time for this, they had to finish this before more of the undead stumbled upon them. "Pathetic," she muttered as she walked away, her last words short and sharp. She would let Bellen step in and do the caring act, but Nictor would not always have Bellen or another troll there to help him. She would teach him a lesson or two.
She had seen that fire, that survival instinct. She would bring it out again. She would make him into a true troll- a troll she would approve of.
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quite uneventful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-4)
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Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:16 am
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