Log:Swarm of Birds

Swarm of Birds
Participants Gisa, Alonso, Miranda with Paige as ST	22 May, 2017 '
Location Hedge
It's not exactly the greatest weather out, but sometimes that's the best time to go hunting, whether for game or fruit. And that's what this trio is doing, whether they depart together or separately. It's not raining, not anymore, but it is dark overhead. It does mean that some of the local hedgebeasts have retreated to their various dens, burrows or other types of homes, so it should be a safer trip...right? There's a place not too far from Stoneheart that's said to have some Amaranthine growing there. It's not particularly easy to get to, but it is a probable location to find those fruits. Alonso does this whole hedgenaut business as a vocation, so he's in his heavy leather coat, sporting his sword belt and bow, and seated astride his horse. He's even got his eagle with him, presently riding the back of his saddle, looking annoyed at just about everything. The spaniard looks good astride a horse, as the saying goes. Hopefully there's more to be said of him than that. He waits quite patiently. Every minute that passes, it gets a little darker out. Which suits the darkling just fine. She isn't quite the hedgenaut that Alonso is, but Gisa's not ill-equipped for the day. She's content with the darkness overhead; the Fireheart's hand absently clicks open and closes a Zippo in her right hand, a small fidget against the darkness. Her eyeflames flicker and spark, quietly scanning as she meanders alongside Alonso -- but not so close that the frenzied whirl of earth around her body, cloaking her against harm, is likely to hurt him, or the horse he looks so good astride. Miranda likewise is dressed for a trek through the hedge, wearing her manta ray hide vest, and her hedgespun revolver on her hip, a weapon that is some amalgamation of biological growth and clockwork mechanisms. She is still dressed fancy, however, as befits her title. Around that all is a sheath of protective water. "So. Amaranthine right?" she says with a soft little hmmn, "I think I know a good way to this spot I heard had a recent growth of it.." she walks along with the knight and the golem. "Well, then, by all means lead the way. I will do my best to keep you both safe. Once we reach the location, I will cover you both as you hunt for fruits. Then I will ask you both to do the same for me, if that's not too much trouble." Alonso turns his horse about with his knees and starts to steer his horse towards the trod to begin the trip out. "If either of you get tired, you may avail yourself of the horse. He's a very patient fellow, generally." "Yes. Do lead the way. I do not know the local Hedge as well as some, and a Baroness, that I am happy to follow." Gisa brings her hand up and casually tucks a loose lock of her copper-wire hair behind her ear. "A good idea, especially with what happened to Lulu." She falls in alongside the other two, and snorts in amusement at the offer -- well, perhaps it is amusement -- tough to tell with goylomim. "No, no, you ride. I can walk for a very long time, motek." "I can go quite a while too." Miranda says with a little whisp of a smile, "But should I get tired I'll not hesitate to let you know. Come along now, we should go before it dries out too much and the critters decide to come out and sniff around." It takes some time, but Miranda really does seem to know where she's going. There's no moments where she seems uncertain or has to have them backtrack. And when she says they're getting close, she probably means it! Eventually they come to some cliffs, with plants growing on outcroppings. It's hard to tell from where they're at, but surely one of those must have the amaranthine on them...right? Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any easy path up. But then, if there was, there probably wouldn't be any fruit left. Once they reach the wall where the fruits are said to be located, Alonso considers their predicament with something of a chuckle. Well, that figures. "I can make the ascent easily enough, but as for the rest of you-- perhaps not so easily? Do either of you have any rope? I could carry it up just as well." Alonso turns to Gisa, extending out to her his bow. All beautiful and polished up for use tonight. "Here. I trust you to cover me with it, at the least. I will have my blades." He then heads to his horse to fetch his eagle from the saddle, untethering its foot and unmasking its face. "Up you go. I may need you. So keep an eye out, eh?" He tosses the eagle skyward, and it begins winging up and up in a circle, using the updrafts along the cliff face. That just leaves the man himself who, once his dagger and sabre are drawn, steps over to the wall, puts one foot onto it and-- then the next. And then he's ascending it rather like Adam West's Batman. "Rope? Either of you?" "I don't have any rope on me, sorry." Miranda says with an apologetic little shrug of her shoulders, "But I'll keep a watch out as you make the climb, though I don't particularly see well in the dark!" "I have no rope, but I can climb easily enough. I will gladly cover your back, though, Alonso." Gisa shakes her head at both requests for rope, spreading her hands easily enough to show that, indeed, they are empty. When Alonso starts to climb, she turns her head, watching him ascend, and cocks her head toward the Darkling's ascending form indicatively as she looks back at Miranda, totally straight-faced. Yep, she'll totally watch his butt--back. Yes. His back. Alonso has no difficulty climbing the wall, quite obviously. Just another stroll up a verticle grade. His blades both cast light in the darkness, making it possible at the very least to spot /him/ as he ascends the wall and inspects this outcropping and that, trying to narrow down where the amaranthine is growing in order to guide the others. He's making good time, as good a time as were he walking along the ground. So there's that, at least. His eagle continues to circle overhead on wide spread wings, watching and waiting. He even gives the 'okay' sign as he goes. Yep. What could possibly go wrong? Miranda rests her hands on her hips and hmns softly, "Should we start going up after him, leapfrog up from ledge to ledge so we stay closer?" she asks, glancing over towards Gisa, "I wouldn't want one of us to get attacked without having some quick backup." "It is at least easy to see him," Gisa comments, looking up after the blades as he ascends, since the Spaniard himself becomes more difficult to see after a few minutes. "It would be interesting, I think, to have a small something to see better in the dark. He prefers to jaunt in the nighttime." Because obviously he does. "Hmm. Not a bad idea. His bird is on watch, but you never know if the cliff itself is alive." Beat. "I am, after all." The golem gestures toward the cliff face with a hand. "After you. If something comes up after us, I am a bigger bite to take." The cliffs are not an easy climb...unless you stick to them like a bug. But even then, once you're a few feet up, there are problems, when the greenery gets too thick. It makes it so even Alonso has to slow down a bit in places, but he doesn't fall. Which given that some of that greeny has very large, very sharp thorns? That's probably a good thing. Except...he seems to have disturbed...something. Something with wings. They rise up from the various patches of plantlife on the edges of the cliff, dozens of them from any particular spot, rising up into the air. They're hard to spot, though Alonso can manage it. Gisa and Miranda, however...they largely just /hear/ the sound of wings. Any progress Miranda may have undertaken in trying to get up the cliff face is stalled as the sound of something up above taking flight. She reaches down to her hip, easing out her revolver and frowning, "I wonder if it's a dire bat, they love coming out for these fruits at night, and the fruits are especially delicious after a spring rain..." Well that figures. Alonso, once he's secure in his footing, turns to brace one knee against the wall, then springs forward towards the nearest outcropping. He rolls once, coming up to his feet with both blades at the ready. Swirling avian annoyances aside, he puts his back to the wall, assumes a crouch, and waits to fend off their attacks. Or drop on them from above as the case may be. The winds begin to whip rather more viciously around his person now that his dander is up. She'd started up the wall, having slung Alonso's hedgespun bow -- which he put in her hands before he started climbing -- over her back. When the sound of wings happens? Gisa calls up the wall toward Alonso: "Light them up!" She seems to mean that rather literally. The golem drops down from the wall -- they hadn't gotten very far up -- and unslings the bow from her back. Fun trivia about this bow: it doesn't require a quiver. It fires bolts of electricity. Since Showoff McSuavepants showed off before? Gisa knows how it works. While the trio prepare after hearing those wings, the creatures surge upward, then dive downward. They're not bats, sadly, though surely there are some around here. They look almost like songbirds, at least as far as their size and general shape goes. Songbirds probably don't have talons quite /that/ big though, and they certainly don't gather in flocks quite like this to attack people who have encroached on their territory. As they get closer the noise gets surprisingly loud, all those wings flapping at once. But at least they seem to be forming into two groups...that's a plus...right? Just kidding, there are arrows, and Gisa got one. Taking a step or two back from the outcropping, Gisa's eyes narrow, dimming the flames in her eyepits for a moment. She draws back the bow and lets fly her arrow, knocking a few of them out of the sky. The golem's eyes stay narrowed, and she reaches for another arrow. Alonso times his leap upwards just right and with a single slash knocks a pair of the critters out of the sky. There's a brief flash of light during the swing, leaving a sunrise vista momentarily visible in the wake of his sabre stroke. Quite lovely, after a fashion. As he comes back to the ground, his dagger begins to shine brightly at the nearest of the circling birds. The darkling seems quite happy to use light against its enemies as much as his kith typically favors the dark. Miranda fires off her revolver, firing off a little chrysalis that explodes in the cliffs near the birds, "YAH! SHOO!" She shouts out, waving 'The Judge' menacingly at the birds. One of the swarms was heading for Miranda and Gisa, but the combination of her yelling and shooting her gun has them veering off, splitting into two. It likely won't last long, but it gives the Lost a reprieve at least. The golem stays focused: as the swarms break apart, she's reloading the bow. Gisa isn't as speedy with a bow as Alonso is, so reloading takes her a little longer than it takes him. Alonso continues to pick off the birds as they happen by his perch. He's got the timing down at this point, and seems able to just place his blade in their way at this point. One bird comes in, two halves of bird come out. He's not letting his guard down just yet, but it would seem he's taken his foot off the gas a bit where the urgency is concerned. Somewhere amid the fray, his own eagle swoops down to tag his head with its feet. Boop. And off again, swirling up with the other birds. Only bigger. The swarms aren't the only things going after the trio of Lost. The outcroppings contain thorns, and one of them lashes out toward Alonso, but they miss him, by quite a ways. Likewise, when the higher swarm tries to attack Alonso, none of them manage to do anything to harm the man. "You know these aren't violent hobs! Just territorial. You don't have to resort to slaughter!" Miranda calls out to the others, but as the flocks have been stirred to violence, she fires off her hand cannon at the flock, a little explosion in the mist taking down a few of the birds. None of the birds have actually /harmed/ any of the Lost, though it's hard to tell if they're actually trying and failing miserably, or just trying to scare them off. Some of them zoom by Gisa, but leave her unharmed. She's a little slower than Alonso, but Gisa is deliberate with everything. (And, honestly, quicker than she normally looks.) She draws the bow again, and this shot thins the herd rather considerably. "Motek, Miranda, sound off -- are either of you hurt?" The golem's feet shuffle a little as she leans back after firing, prepping to grab another arrow. Alonso has little ground to work with, but he makes the most of it. The flurry of birds that pass him by buffet harmlessly off his elemental shield or are otherwise ducked and dodged quite nimbly. He's a spry fellow, the spaniard. Rather than continue to focus on the birds, he twirls about to face the thorns which were encroaching in behind him and jabs the tip of his sabre through the bark and into the meat of the plant. It's not a particularly telling blow, really, but it seems to do the job. The rest of the vines and thorns wilt as though in the heat of a dry august sun and stir no more. He tugs his blade free and once more orients himself to engage the menace overhead. "Never better! A few more minutes of this and I might break a sweat!" The birds go to dive at Alonso, but somehow...manage to fly right into his blade when he's going after the thorns. Well some of them do, anyway, inadvertantly killing themselves. A little frown crosses Miranda's face as she sees what's going on with the birds. "This isn't right." She says, "We're just invading their nesting grounds and killing them for a couple of fruit." The birds once again do a flyby of Gisa, but none of them actually touch her, much less hurt her. Once again the golem reloads her bow -- well, the bow she has on loan for the moment, anyway -- and if she has any existential qualms about shooting the flock down? Gisa doesn't do more than grunt in response. "But are you hurt?" she asks. "With respect, Lady Baron, they are aggressive clawed birds nesting very near to the trod. The next passersby might not be so skilled!" Alonso sidesteps another swooping bird and bats out with his sabre, knocking several more from the sky to drop at his feet. He's gathering quite a collection. "And if it is any consolation, my sabre uses sleep poison! Not /all/ of them are dead. So that's good, yes?" Alonso ducks his head to evade another swoop, then snaps out his blade again to whack another, sending it spiraling down towards the ground. "Mostly?" "I disagree." Miranda says, shaking her head a little as she moves to step back from the cliff face, "You've been led to your destination, what you do is on you, but these birds may be beloved by other hobs, though." she tries to keep a bit of a distance off from the swarming birds and such. The birds seem content to leave Miranda alone once she backs away from the cliff, but they keep swooping down entirely too close to Alonso and Gisa, but never actually managing to hurt either of them. Miranda's words come just in time for Gisa to loose anouther arrow, wiping out essentially the rest of one of the swarms. "If they're this close to the trod, this close in, I agree with Alonso." Gisa reaches for another arrow, one that one is fired, and grunts with apparent approval of her work. "If we were in the thorns, perhaps not. I am not unsympathetic to your opinion, Baroness, but... " her voice trails off. "I will gladly stop defending myself when they cease attempting to peck my eyes, Lady Baron! If you have some means of communicating this to them, I would certainly be grateful." Alonso jukes one way then the next as the last of the birds swirl around him. One by one he clobbers them down to the ground. Some merely dozing, others less fortunate in their repose. But his words are punctuated by silence, no more frenetic chirping or the fluttering of wings. He stands still for a few seconds more to make certain all is quiet, then wipes his sabre clean on his sleeve and slides both it and his parrying dagger back into their sheathes. The cliff side returns to shadow once more. "In any case. We're free to take the amaranthine now. The sleepers will awake before sunrise, well rested. It only looks like a complete and utter massacre." And it does. "You kill them not because they are a nuissance, there have been no reports of birds attacking travelers, but because you can and view them as inferior, and wish to take a treasure beyond their nests." Miranda says with a little shake of her head, "I expect no share of the spoils. I shall wait down the trod for you to finish your butcher's work." When there are only a few birds left, they retreat, going to the higher outcroppings to hide in the flora up there from the Lost below. Hopefully it'll be easy to find the fruit now. "Okay," answers Gisa, and her face is a blank ceramic slate. "Alonso, are you well? Do you need help up there?" She lowers the bow, making sure that all is well, and slings it across her back again. "Otherwise I am going to separate the sleepers and put them up off the trod, so they can wake later rather than be something's lunch before then." "I will not apologize for defending myself from wild hobs with as little loss of life as I could manage. If you believe this butchery, Lady Baron, never go to war." Alonso leaves it at that, and answers Gisa instead. "I am fine. Just fine. I can pick the plants myself, or you can come up to join me, either way. Probably best you remain below, however, as you might rustle up more of the birds if you come up, too. Just keep an eye out?" And with that, Alonso resumes the search for the amaranthine. "I asked for no apology." Miranda says with a little shrug of her shoulders. She offers little more response to the couple, and with little added fuss she starts making her way down the trod, the way they came a bit. Shaking her head slightly, Gisa doesn't offer any more commentary one way or the other: she starts to sort out the dead hobs from the sleeping ones as best she can, so she can do as she stated she would. The golem's shin and eyes are visible even from a short bit away; it's kind of an unnerving thing, honestly, when the shapes of her face fall into the darkness and leave only the glowing sigil and slender pupil-flames. Alonso scrounges up a trio of the fruits, wraps them up in cloth, and stuffs them down into his hip pouch for the trip down to the ground. He simply walks over the lip of the outcropping and ambles down the face of the wall, aiming for Gisa down below. Her eyes make pretty decent beacons, when all is said and done. The fruits are moved into his saddle bags for safer travel, and then takes his bow and quiver back from Gisa with a nod of approval. "Thank you." His eagle circles back down as he climbs back into the saddle, and alights once more on the back of the horse. He adjusts the set of his hat on his head to keep the moonlight from his eyes and gives his mount a gentle nudge with his heels. Off they go at a slow trot suitable for the others to keep pace to.