Log:Tempered Temperance: Eight-legged Endings
| Tempered Temperance: Eight-legged Endings | |
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| Participants | 22 May, 2018 Megan and Kip go out in search of gravewyrms. Part of Tempered Temperance |
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| Megan had called for Kip a bit later than planned. Something about a bar fight at Cyclone, and having to nurse off a sprained ankle and a broken wrist. She'd be waiting near the gate on the opposite side of the riverside markets in the mortal world. When Kip does cross over the look of a prim and propper woman is gone. She's adorned in heavy, golden armor that shines a bit too brightly in the early morning sun. Her hair's held high in a bun although a few stray locks still cover her face as she tries move it behind her ear. A sheathed sword sits on one side of her hip while a dagger rests on the thigh of the other side. At present she's feeding what looks to be feathered-lizard large enough to swallow her whole. Kip, on the other hand, looks... well, like Kip. He's got some armor on, though it's clearly nothing special. It's the armor someone who doesn't know anything about armor would manage to scrounge up from the pile of 'Well, better than nothing, right?' pile in the freehold armory. His hair is pulled back, a ponytail trying to tame it out of his face but failing since strands keep slapping him in the face in a manner that looks less 'cool' than Megan's does. At least the man bun is gone for the day. Small blessings, right? He has his usual leather messenger bag slung across him diagonally, the bag portion bouncing against his hip. A pen is stuck into his hair, like he tried to put it behind an ear but it kept slipping so he tangled it into the pulled-back part of his hair for safekeeping. He does hesitate a little at the feathered lizard, but it's more a look of being unsure if he should get too close to it while it's eating than actually being outright afraid of it in general. "Hey," he says in that whispery-quiet voice of his. Kip may be demure, but Megan is more than happy to make up for it. The facade of someone mostly normal is gone out here in the hedge, and she loudly shouts, "Good of you to come!" Somehow, she's even louder than their last meeting. She claps him on the shoulder, her guantlet clanking against the poorer armor of Kip's. She then moves to his side, and squeezes his shoulder. "This is Betsy," she waves in the large hedge beasts direction as it chews down its last bit of meat. After letting out a belch and a gout of flame the feathered-lizard turns to greet Kip with several loud sniffs as the pits of its nostrils open up. "Food?" it asks curiously in a grumbling, raspy voice. "No, Betsy, this is the one I told you about." Despite Megan's denial Betsy continues sniffing at and around Kip. "So! What do you know about gravewyrms, Kip?" What a pair. Quiet tall Kip with his half-assed armor looking like the world's dorkiest supernerd, all wide-eyed at being in the Hedge like he's not there very often and loud shiny Megan Sato looking every bit the explorer and adventurer she is. "Not food," he says though the words are so papery thin that they're really more a faint push of air past his lips than anything else. He squints a little in the way of someone thinking. Because he's read something-- "They don't eat live things typically, right?" His face clearly reads 'Tell me I'm right, please. Please let me be right.' "Hell if I know, but it'll be a good time!" She slaps him on the back a bit to hard, and laughs. "Trust me." Despite how easily she says those words something says it may not be best to completely trust her. She then moves over to Betsy, and with a hop far too elegant for that much armor she easily mounts the beast. "C'mon, then. They aren't gonna wait for 'em. I'll even split the bounty I get for this, and you can probably buy your lover something nice. From what I keep reading in the paper it's more like lovers, right?" She winks at that, and then offers a hand to help help him on behind her. Kip mostly doesn't trust anyone, especially those who say to trust them. But he must, clearly, trust /in/ her enough to follow her lead, taking the hand to get on behind her. "Oh Jesus, the paper. Don't-- don't listen to Enid and her gossip. I have a girlfriend. I think. Just the one. And before that it was just one. And before /that/ there weren't any. I-- I'm not what she makes me sound like." Oh does he sound flustered and embarassed and rather awkward about it? How utterly adorkable. And horrifying. For him. He settles in and though Megan doesn't see the expression on his face, she might /feel/ it radiate from him that he's not entirely positive this is the best idea anyone has ever had. But he's there and clutching on for dear life. There isn't much give with her armor, and it feels slightly warm to the touch. He has to hold on tight as the scaly steed starts moving. It's a slow gallop at first. Something almost pleasant. Then Megan shouts, "Let's ride!" With that the mount picks up speed without any form of warning. It darts along the trod at preternatural speeds without missing a single beat. With how fast they're going it's hard to make out what Megan's shouting back at Kip. The easiest things to be understood are, 'Fun. Dead. Bloody. Amaze. Blood. Girl. Friends.' "WHAT?" Kip shouts back, though even his shouts are fairly quiet compared to most people. At first, his grip was tight but not a death grip. That grip gets tighter (and tighter. And tighter) until he seems to realize what he's doing and loosens his grip a little. After all, he /is/ kinda stronger than he looks. "I-- I CAN'T HEAR--?!" Even though he has incredibly sensitive hearing usually, the sound of the wind brushing across his ears makes more sound than the shout that is ripped into the airflow. His eyes squint a bit and though he makes a mental note to put a pair of goggles into his bag just in case in the future, he's probably going to forget to do so. "Yeah!" she screams. "We're near." Betsy keeps it up for a solid five more minutes until she slows into a trot. The place they stopped at smells amazing to be sure. Leafless tress dot the landscape, although their trunks are difficult to see. The horizon is covered from end to end in thorny bushes with far too many flowers to name. Many of them at least appear mundane, but this is the Hedge. "Alright, Kip. Be on the look out for gravemarkers, and try not to poke anything in the bushes that blinks at you." "That-- that blinks...?" Kip mumbles quietly like he's suddenly more than a little unsure about this whole situation. But he swallows it all back as he looks around, possibly letting the beauty of the place set him slightly more at ease. At least it doesn't /look/ dangerous, even though he knows full well it likely is. "Gravemarkers? Hang on, let me make some notes." He fumbles in the bag a bit to pull out his notepad. "Do you know where we are? I mean-- does this area have a name you know of?" "Yep!" she chirps back to him. "Blinks. If we're lucky one of 'em" Megan hops right of Betsy, and scratches the hedge beast under the chin while addressing Kip. "It's Something-Landing. Not sure why it's called a landing though. I didn't hear anything about stuff landing out here, but you never know." She shrugs idly. "Maybe thunderbirds come this far out east. If we're lucky we'll find a nest of them too!" After she's giving that extra bit of love to Betsy she turns, and begins looking for which way into this mazy of thorny bushes they'll go. Kip glances up from his notepad, peering at her for a moment while she gets down and then makes his notes before the book is shoved back into the bag and his pen is tucked back behind an ear. He looks unsure for a moment before he too climbs his way down as well, not quite as awkwardly as he had expected. "Uh, thank you for the ride," he is sure to mumble to Betsy before pushing some hair back from his face as he peers around as well. Betsy sniffs at Kip after his thanks, remarking, "Prey?" The usually loud Megan shushes the beast as she begins her march forward. Of the seven pathways available she chooses the leftmost path after a quick game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe. "This should do it." As their march begins the bushes begin to shake and shiver. Megan remains ignorant of this as she looks ahead with one hand on the pommel of her sword. "If we can't find what we're looking for we may haev to go down those other paths. What's the worst that could happen?" Kip's are not for eatings! Kip pulls back juuust a touch as Betsy speaks, giving Megan a quick glance as if to ask 'She's joking... right? right?' or something. "Uhm, that looks..." scary? "...fine. But don't ask what the worst that could happen is. I went looking for berries once and ended up going insane and nearly dying." He hitches his bag higher up so it doesn't bump quite as much when he walks and squares back his shoulders. "I'm sure we'll find what we need. You seem to have done well so far getting us this far." "Ha!" Megan's bark of a laugh draws further attention from the bushes. Small, long-tailed birds were flying overhead, but after Megan's shouting they turn right around from the perches they were aiming for. "It sounds like they didn't kill you so it wasn't even that bad. You even survived it so it's something to be good and goddamned proud of." She nods assuringly to that, and points off to a collection of stones in the distance. "Think that might be it?" she asks as something moves through the bushes behind them. Yeah. Not that bad. Kip just sort of gives a noncommital snort under his breath at that. "Just mean it's good to be really really careful," he comments mostly to himself as he squints to peer at the stones off in the distance. "Could be," he says, taking a few steps in that direction as if those few tiny steps might somehow make it seem closer and bigger for better examination. He stops short though at the rustle in the bushes and turns his head to look behind him. "You hear-- nevermind. I'm probably imagining things." As Megan goes on, she starts prattling on about the finer points of pride and survival. The closer they get to that stony outcropping the darker things become. There's no leaves above to block out the sun, but the weather worsens with their every step. As they get to those stone Megan starts complaining about her poor choice in path. It's at that moment that a spider just a bit bigger than the already large Bety hops out, and drags its fangs along Kip's back as it tries to turn him into a snack.
Megan quickly turns on her heel when she hears Kip. She stares down the twelve-eyed fiend, hastily pulling her weapons from their sheathes as she moves to get in front of Kip. "Oh! Now I remember," she bemoans as she scrapes the dagger accross the length of the sword. "EIGHT-LEGGED Landing. I knew it was something with legs, but thought that was the name of the place I got drunk at." She shrugs then, and launches herself at teh creature without a moment's hesitation then. The creature itself is about the size of a small car, and covered in leaves. It doesn't look like animate vegitation, the least weird thing to coem from the hedge, but as a form of camouflage for it to hide among the bushes. Megan manages to cut off one of its pedipalps, and lets ot a raucous cheer that's cut short as it launches a glob of acid at her armor. "You're! Writing! This! Down!" she screams with each thrust and slash of her blades. Usually, Kip would retort with something like, 'Of /course/ I'm wrting this down!' but right now he's too busy clutching onto his notebook and scrambling to get out of the way the best he can while still whining about the pain of it all. Plus now he's on the ground and dirty, but he still has his book clutched close and he's not dead so that's something. "YOU COULDN'T THINK OF THAT SOONER?" If Kip was capable of shouting, if even his yelling wasn't that weird whispery sort of thing, he'd be bellowing those words out as he scrambles out of the way and gets back to his feet, finally getting a good clear view of the creature. Well shit. He cringes at a few of the more theatrical thrusts and splatters before quickly making more notations into the notebook. After all, he's there to take notes on her kicking names and taking asses. "What's it called?" Other than big and ugly. "Didn't know!" she calls back. "Don't know!" She says as she brings the pommel of her sword down on one of its many eyes. Megan roars again, or about as much of a roar as she can affect with her higher pitched voice. All her shouting does is draw more of the attention of these hedge beasts. One comes from the left, and within seconds too more come from the right. Her initial target is ended when a flourish of her dagger accross its forelegs has it skittering into the dirt as its grey ichor spills into the earth. Kip jots down more stuff, still trying his best to stay out of the way and keep half an eye on what's going on, like he'd be of some sort of help or something. "Don't know the name, so gotta research-- WATCH-- out." The cry goes unnecessary as she makes a thrust and slash. "Acid blood, eight legs, smells like... Wow. Not good." He makes a face as the smell wafts up toward him. "If they aren't in the bestiary yet, I will make sure they go in," he mumbles as he continues making notes. "Would you say you that last move is more heroically thrusted or was it more of a fearless slashing?" It's /then/ that he looks up enough to see outside the narrow view he'd taken of the world and looks around. "Uh-- We uhm... Aspirant? Sato? SATO? We're about to have company." He points his pen toward the closest one. Company? She looks back to Kip, and then further down as more of the creatures come. "Friends!" she shouts with far too much excitement. She takes a running start, and her mantle flares. She leaps a few yards into the air, and comes down one of the spiders, digging her blades into its leaf-covered carapace. While she tries steering that spider around one of the others has caught sight of Kip. Friends? Kip mouths before realizing she means friends of that... /thing/. AcidEvilLeggyThing. He watches her for a moment, almost like he's entirely entranced by her motions before his attention veers to the others. Specifically the one that spots him. Something else is mumbled under his breath before he's stepping backward, holding that notebook like it's some sort of shield. "Uh, I think I have a knife... I swear I remembered..." he mumbles as he digs his free hand into the bag against his hip. "Hang on." Yeah that thing is going to listen and let him call a time out. Sure it is. "Just-- don't come any closer," he says as he steps backward slowly. Megan lets out a yeehaw as she rides that spider around to and fro. It doesn't much like her presence on its back let alone the blades she sinks further into it. The other simply scuttles back and forth while trying to get some kinda angle on the Wizened woman. The one at Kip is another matter, however. It nears him, skulkng slow as it approaches its lightly armored snack. It hisses and rears up on its hind legs in anticipation of eating him. It doesn't get a chance as Megan is in the air again with a sword dragged throguh its thorax as she shears much of it clean in half. Kip's free hand has been held up in a STOP but the thing just doesn't /stop/ even as he moves backward. At least he's not screaming like a little girl and falling backwards, right? He does pull the hand out of his bag where he was rummaging and throws the arm over his face as he looks away and squints his eyes closed in anticipation of it attacking. And then... it doesn't? He cracks an eye open and peers over, watching her just decimate the thing. He stays in that position for a moment like he's not sure it's actually happening, then straightens up slowly. He's cool. He's collected. He's not at all on the verge of wetting himself as scary giant certain death looms over him and dies by Sato's hand. Nope. Not at all. As if belatedly he realizes he's both holding his breath and panting, nearly giving himself the hiccups. "You-- thanks," he says in a bit of disbelief. The last one is ridden straight through the front of a thorny bush, and this is one thing that does set of Megan. "Ow," she shouts several times over a single, solitary thorn jabs into her cheek. As she pulls it out she rubs at that wee wound with her thumb. The last of the leafy-spiders was moving behind Megan as she frets over that little bit of pain and drained glamour. Kip stares, just watching for a minute before he snaps out of it. "Get down!" he shouts as he spots the straggler, despite the fact that he has no weapon available to him except the, thankfully, hard-bound notebook he brought. So for lack of any other options, he takes the book and chucks it at it, though it falls short of actually making contact. But dammit he /tried/. "What? Oh!" Megan remains facing Kip as she whistles a high-pitched tune. That's when Betsy arrives as fast as she got them there, and she breaths out a stream of fire that envelopes all of the spider before it can do a thing to the Wizened. She simply bathes in the flames, likely from the help of a clause or something from her august order. She blows a few stray hairs from the front of her face while she stares down Kip like she's the source of her rage. "Why aren't you writing?" Kip's answer is to point. At the book. Which is on the ground several feet away from him. But he does go after it, grabbing it up from the dirt so he can go back to making his notes and writing it all down. "I was... trying to save you," he mumbles as he flips the pages to find where he left off. "Wait no-- can-- don't burn /that/ one?" he asks Betsy as he points. "I was going to uh, to draw it so I remember what it looks like when I get back to look them up in case they've been noted already. Just let me uhm... hang on." He's all mumbling and awkward as he finds the page and starts frantically working on the notes and sketching. Betsy stops with a belch. She turns to one of the other spidery carcasses lying about, and without a moment's wait starts to dig in. The one left remaining is still in the same spot, but all of those leaves on its body are now gone as ash covers every inch of its body and the ground beneath it. "Thanks, I, um, guess." Megan shrugs. She crouches down low, cleaning off her blades along the grass for the time being. "We could always just take the pieces and you can put it back together like those people that do it with bones." Kip doesn't look like he really relishes the idea of /touching/ the thing, so he just shakes his head. "Uh-- no thanks I uhm, I'm good. I'll just... do it from memory." He nods a bit, more of his mess of hair coming loose from the ponytail he'd put it back into, pen going crazy across the page as he sketches and writes and all that, giving a few glances to what's left of the things and trying his best to, unsuccessfully, hold back a grimace of disgust. | |
