This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.5
PTR
10.2.6
Makorr: Unity {Collaborative Story}
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Atik
The cold air of fall blew through the tree branches; nearly naked with leaves falling from them. Slowly, they drifted downwards towards the ground, settling on the sidewalk far below the former canopy. The small red leaf stopped, curved out, its edges reaching towards the sky as if in defiance of its fate.
Defiance that was suddenly crushed as a black boot smacked down atop it, crunching the detached foliage underneath its weight. The man continued jogging, blue sweatshirt zipped up, collar sticking up and covering his neck, the cold zipper brushing against his chin, and only a thin beard protecting against the metal.
"Being broke sucks..." Logan mumbled, jogging along the sidewalk in hopes of making the hour and a half walk to work before his shift started. "No money for gas, no money for a cab, not even any money for an energy bar..." He continued, sucking in a breath of cold air. Vehicles screeched as the sped either direction down the street, many of them most likely also on their own ways to work.
The cold breath only served to bring his dry throat to the front of his mind, and make him notice a vending machine placed in front of one of the many second-hand stores that lined the road. His jog slowed, and he contemplated the situation. Slowly, the man approached the machine, noting the presence of an energy drink.
"Vault? Holy crap, they still make vault?" He blinked, curiosity getting the better of him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled free one of the few single dollars available to him, offering it to the slot on the front of the machine.
There was a whir, tiny gears gripping the green paper and pulling it in. They halted suddenly, spinning in reverse. The high pitched sound was accompanied with the dollar suddenly reemerging from the vending machine. Begrudgingly, the man moved to retrieve it. A sudden gust of wind would have none of it, however; the dollar being ripped free and flowing away through the air.
Logan stopped, staring blankly for a moment. "@#$%!" He shouted, punching the machine with the side of his fist. To his surprise, another whir escaped it. It halted, giving way to the clunking sound of something bouncing inside it. Looking down, he watched as a bright green bottle landed in the opening below.
Leaning down, he noticed the fact it had no label. Maybe a mistake by whoever had loaded the machine? Not about to pass up a free drink, he reached for it.
The plastic crumpled at his touch, his fingers poking through and into the warm inside of the bottle. Pulling back, green smoke began to spill forth. "What the hell?" He wondered, trying to step back from the machine. He slipped however, foot kicking upwards as he fell backwards. Blinking, he watched the culprit; a tiny red leaf, sent flowing upwards into the sky as he fell to the ground.
***
The worg growled, moving slowly along the grass. Making long strides, the beast created a semi-circle, fur sticking out on end if making the canine seem larger than it was. Granted, a five foot tall killing machine hardly needed to create an illusion of size, except maybe when faced with one of the few things of comparable size.
In this event, that amounted to a second worg. Nearly as big as the first, it mirrored the movements of the first, the two creating a circle on the forest floor. Growling, the suddenly let forth a bark; charging each other.
There was a small explosion, both canines halting and turning to vanish into the trees. Green smoke rose towards the sky above. From the cloud a man fell, head smacking into the cold ground. Light khakis covered his legs, a blue sweat shirt over his torso.
Logan groaned, handing reaching up and running through his brown hair. Slowly, a leaf drifted down, covering his face and blocking his vision with its red. "Ow..." The man complained.
Post by
oneforthemoney
You are now JONAS ANDERS. You are a normal TWENTY year old boy who has recently left home for the first time. It is your birthday and time for your very first adventure and certainly not because your parents decided you were old enough to be kicked out without feeling guilty. You have a wide variety of INTERESTS such as playing VIDEO GAMES, DAYDREAMING, and generally being an UTTER NERD. You lived at home up to this point and had many PRIZED AND TREASURED possessions. You now have a VAN. It is BURGANDY and woefully lacking in any EPIC PAINTING because your art skills have been described as at the level of a toddler. Yet despite this, you dream of doing great things, of becoming an auspicious gentleman of note and not the one note of failure, commonly believed to be a BROWN note. But you are not BROWN but RED, the colour of champions, communists, and things that go very fast. You know this because you once painted your room RED and that made it at least ten times as awesome as before, as dictated by the colour wheel.
For some reason currently unfathomable, you now want to be JONAS ANDERS. Why would you do that?
You are now JONAS ANDERS.
Jonas Anders stands outside of his van. It was hot outside, it being the middle of June and summer currently stretching out its humid embrace like the arms of a feverish parent clinging to their child, like their youth could somehow protect them from the ravages of disease. You are wearing denim jeans and a winter jacket over a long sleeve shirt, because you are from the north and therefore all seasons are merely stages of melting, freezing, and being nipple rigidifying cold. You have dirty blonde hair and green eyes, and your physical character has been described as something between teenage gawk and the pallor of something that has only known the shadows of caves. In such a state you are currently sitting on the curb beside your van, within which holds all your current possessions including a damp sponge that seems to draw sustenance from the wet heat all around you, a stack of CD’s including disco’s greatest hits, and the charger for your IPad, the device in question currently in your hands, and whose hard drive is filled with the sum knowledge of WoWpedia and songs by the Arrogant Worms. Truly your pale @ss is now prepared to take the world by the horns.
Yet, somehow, you do not feel all that confident. As a result you are sitting on the curb, your head in your hands, and hoping very much the police don’t pick you up for being a gangly guy in a winter jacket, sitting outside a van with tinted windows on a residential street, and leafing through an Ipad. You have yet to be disturbed so assume the people whose home you are currently leeching the Wifi from have been too terrified to tell you to get lost, or their call to the cops on your hobo @ss is still going through. Either way, you’ve got about ten minutes.
Your story now begins, as narrated in the third person.
A glint on the sidewalk suddenly caught Jonas’s eye. He squinted and found a green glass bottle lying in the gutter, abandoned. The boy smiled, feeling a special kinship with the jade glass, but more importantly, that bottle might be filled with liquid and oh my God he was thirsty and holy *!@# why hasn’t he picked it up yet he’s goddam dying over here because he had no money and no one will let him inside their house to get some damn water. Grabbing the bottle he found it topped with a cap. Praising the sky for its benevolence that he wasn’t likely to now be ingesting a hobo’s urine, Jonas whipped out his leatherman and pried off the lid.
“Holy-!” he managed to exclaim before the blast of green fog enveloped him. The bottle rang as it struck the gutter, and as the mist faded it revealed the same sidewalk, minus one depressed former teen.
The dark sky hovered above the forest grimly. It was ever overcast with heavy grey clouds, clouds which seemed to now be moving. Indeed, it was no illusion, for they were gathering slowly but surely, massing in the heavens into a circle like that of a hurricane’s eye. Light flashed from this center ring, the clouds at the very edge of this becoming touched with a green light as if ill. Emerald lightning crackled from the new hole in the sky. The wind whirled the dead leaves and spun the grass, and should someone be observing this from above, they would have noticed it forming a spiral of wind, drawing slowly up to the hole in the sky. The air grew tense, electrified with the building expectancy of an event. A hush came, a void of sound, suddenly rent by an explosion of air blasting outwards, tearing the hole wider in the sky. Something dropped from its center, slowly, cushioned by the gathered wind, and lowered to the grass gently.
Jonas lay very still where he landed. He stared at the hole in the heavens above him with wide green eyes as it was lost, the clouds dissolving back to their normal state, their task done. He stared long at the overcast sky without moving. Then, finally, spoke his first sentence, one which connected this world and the next.
“…!@#$.”
Post by
355559
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
morginar
Martin sat in a dark room, but not truly dark as a single light came from a desk lamp. The young adult sat down in a comfortable office chair at his desk and read a book, but not any book, this was "
A song of ice and fire - A dance with Dragons
" By Gerge.R.R me. With blood, sex, a guy who knows nothing, a guy who don't know where #$%^&s go and dragons.
The man turned page as time flew by, day turned to dusk and the man got up to his feet with half asleep legs. He closed its pages and moved outside from the house to walk his leg and eyes back to life. Rain dripped from the skies, of course it did, it's summer and in Sweden, what else did you expect?
Music played loudly into his ears from a headset and an outdated Iphone. A hood on his head protected Martin from getting his chestnut brown hair soaked, or water in his emerald green eyes from the rain. And kept eletronical devices dry and functional.
After minutes of walking he reached the shore of Sweden's second largest lake, long and narrow with a single island in the middle a giant tossed down to reach his lover on the other side of the lake. But today no giants walked over it, instead Thor hammered forked lightning down to the waters below. A most beautiful sight. But there was something more this mystic night, a bottle in the water, green of glass and empty of a message. Someone didn't get the memo that one should put the map of buried treasure into bottles.
He picked the bottle up and opened it. Sharpened these eyes of his to see if there was perhaps a letter inside afterall, but no. Green gas. Well, it doesn't smell like mustard...
Far high up in the heavens, father sky spited out a man, far below mother earth catches the man in her arms of grass. With his face turned to stranger skies the man with blue jeans, black t-shirt and a black jacket with water resistance. For a long time silence had fallen over the woods, but then it was dispersed as the mouth opened and said a string word, words of an alien tongue, never once spoken in this world. Or has it happened before?
"Vad I helvete?"
Post by
Stabhorn
"Yes! Level six!" Andy Hardin did a small jig across the carpet of his floor, wii remote bouncing from his arm. He had triumphed over that cursed piece of machinery! Bowser was undone and dethroned, all was safe...until the next level, that was. He sat back on the couch, yawning slightly. In response to this, he popped the top off of another Mountain Dew. He was
not
going to fall asleep, despite the fact that it was several hours into the early mother. His parents and siblings were fast asleep. But not him. It was his seventeenth birthday, and he was going to enjoy every moment of it!
He settled into his chair and began the next level. Mario was off on another wild adventure, dancing upon Andy's invisible strings. Resting beside him, his faithful dog Pippin looked up at the sound of something tapping outside. But the Dachshund did not get up to check out the disturbance, so Andy ignored it as well.
Another hour passed quickly, consumed by the video gaming, which Andy proved to be quite fantastic at. His iPhone buzzed, irritably informing him of the time. Five o'clock in the morning. What a dire time, the end of his enjoyment was fast approaching.
He stood and stretched, slipping his phone into his pocket. Pippin lept off of the couch and ran into the kitchen, probably wanting to use the restroom. It was probably time to get some sleep, he didn't want to be too exhausted when it came time for his school to begin. He would probably be able to catch a few winks in third period. Andy drained the last of the soda and walked into the kitchen and threw the can away. Then he unlocked the back door and let the dog out before returning to the living room. Suddenly, he felt very tired.
"Alright," he announced to no one in particular, "I declare this birthday officially over! That's all folks."
And then something struck him, sending him reeling into the ground. He tried to stand but, could not. His head throbbed and he stared up at the figure standing over him, obscured by green mist. The figure tilted his head to one side, "The cycle continues..."
Bowser's face loomed in Andy's vision. Darkness.
His head was on fire, Andy put a hand to the wound in an effort to dissuade the pain. There was no blood; that was good. He suddenly realized that he was
not
at home. Where on earth? The ground around him was covered in dark leaves, and the scent of salty water was in the air. Black trees towered above him.=, adding to the gloomy atmosphere of this place. Andy stood, shocked and bewildered.
"Well look at thisssss, Nak," Something slithered out of the trees, a monstrous...snake? The thing was covered with shiny blue scales and was perched upright like a man. In it's two hands it gripped a trident. The creature smiled, baring hundreds of sharp teeth, "We've got ourselves a little ssssnack!"
Andy backed away from the creatures, looking for something familiar or useful. Another monster emerged, joining the first, "It would be foolish of ussss to pass up this gift!"
Post by
oneforthemoney
Jonas rose to a sitting position. From this far superior vantage point he looked about his newfound surroundings, and found them grim and arboreal. It was hard to consider the skeletal trees, rigid grass, and general gloom to be anything otherwise, unless one were watching Hammer Horror. Yet no Peter Cushing in a hunting coat, nor Christopher Lee in Dracula’s garb out here which, of course, would be far preferable to what he had. Only a chill breeze brushed through to keep the young man company, tossing autumnal leaves and rustling the grass, stiff as needles beneath his hands. Jonas groaned. He made the transition to his feet, looked around and, finding nothing having changed during this, decided to set off.
Uncertainly he made for the trees, not much of an option as there were only trees, hunched forward defensively beneath the weight of the snow, all the time looking about for some sign to dissuade him from this path. Apparently destiny had another appointment, for nothing showed itself promising, and he soon fell beneath the shadows of the trees.
The woods closed in around him. Somewhere, someone was probably playing the nyckelharpa. Jonas glanced in every direction and pulled his red jacket closer. “Okay Jonas. Okay. Remain calm. So…I opened a bottle, and something…green came off. So maybe it was like…pot, or something. And I wandered into the woods in a drunken stupor. Yeah…” He looked about the trees again. “Those are some grim trees for June…” He suddenly stopped and slapped his pockets. He sighed in relief when he drew out his wallet. “Oh thank God. That was close. So, not robbed. Maybe there’s a highway or something I can get a ride at. Crap. I hope they don’t tow my van. Aughhhhh! My van!” he moaned, clutching at his face. “That would be just the capper to it all…”
As he plunged deeper into the forest he noticed that the trees had begun to become less the skeletal sort and more the variety of towering pine. The wind grew colder and the stiffness of the grass was explained by the crunch of frost beneath his feet. He knew this feeling, knew it well. It was the autumnal cold of the north. The one where life becomes subsumed by the cold and life cannot be found for miles in any direction. Only the echoing silence of cold between towering peaks.
“Oh no way. Mountains,” Jonas mentioned, a towering snow capped peak visible from between the trunks. He laughed. “Why am I surprised by that? This is clearly Canada. Yep. So Canadian. Also, why am I speaking out loud? That’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
Jonas whirled around. His eyes flashed everywhere but saw nothing. Very slowly he began walking once more. He began to peer about more intensely, searching out familiar landmarks, but one tree looked all the same, save perhaps a clump of snow, sheltered beneath a shadow.
What he found instead was someone lying in the middle of the forest floor.
Jonas stopped, the crunch of grass settling into the lonely silence of the wind at the roof of the world. The other lay splayed out on his back, his eyes open, staring into the deep blue sky and white tufts of passing clouds. Jonas looked around himself as if for some form of explanation, but once again the forest was being something of a withholding %^&*!. He looked again at the man lying around.
“Hey!” Jonas called out.
The man’s head rolled, snapping the frozen grass to face Jonas. He blinked, face blank. “Oh. Hey?”
“Uh, yeah. You okay?”
The strange man blinked. “Yeah. Dandy.”
“Oh.”
The man sighed and returned to staring at the sky.
An awkward silence settled between them. Jonas scratched a sudden itch in his leg. “So uh…You know you’re lying out here right?”
“Oh. I just assumed I was standing up and you were the one lying down.”
“Oh.”
This riveting conversation hung in the air for a minute or two more. Jonas scratched his head. “So, like…do you know where I can get a bus or…something? I need to get back to my van.”
The man on the ground’s brow wrinkled. “Van?”
“I’m Jonas. Jonas Anders.”
“Logan.”
“Right. Okay.” Jonas shifted from one leg to another. “It must be cold on the ground,” he tried lamely. “Cold for June. Reeeeal cold.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Canada, eh?”
This seemed to rouse some response. Logan frowned and sat up, showing such acts of vertical actions were not beyond him. “What? Canada?”
“Eh?”
“This isn’t Canada.”
“It’s not!” Jonas looked around. “@#$%! How long was I out? Oh God! Was I kidnapped? Shanghaied by pirates?”
“Pirates?”
“…Land pirates.”
Logan pressed his hands against his ears “Holy $%^&. What?”
“Well if this isn’t Canada where is it?”
Logan shrugged. He looked about. “Oz?”
“Too few midgets.”
“I thought they were dwarves?”
This gave both a moment’s food for thought.
Post by
Monday
The autumn sleeves swirled around the man as he walked, crunching beneath his unheeding sole. The dark sky ahead was lit by patches of stars, which shone brightly from the gaps in the clouded expanse. A black hoodie covered his body, while the hood covered his head against the night's chill, obscuring his curly brown hair. One earbud was in his ear, giving him something to think about while he walked. The other hung in the air, leaking noise like exhaust from a car.
Both hands rested in the sweatshirt's hand-warmer- though even through the pocket and the knit gloves wrapped around them, they had begun to go numb with cold. In his right, he clutched the device to which his earbuds were attached: a tall, thin smart phone. His fingers continuously moved over the volume control, adjusting it to his every whim. A balisong was held loosely in his left hand- not exactly tense and ready to pull out at a moment's notice, nor lying unheeded in his pocket. While the town was generally pretty safe, it seemed foolish to walk the streets at 4 AM blind, deaf and cold.
And it seemed he was about to be proven right.
Ahead of him, the cold, orange light of a street lamp illuminated a figure walking along the sidewalk towards him. He lurched with an uneven gait, and something seemed to be hanging from one hand.
Drunk
.
He moved to walk around the man, but paused as he suddenly collapsed; the bottle in his hand rolling away into the grass next to them.
Oh, crap.
"You okay?" Joshua asked, removing the other earbud and stowing it in the warmer. He took a cautious step forward- not quite drawing the knife, but close to it. He received no response, however. The man seemed to be unconscious. "Well *!@# me," he sighed, taking a step back and pulling the earbuds from his phone. He reached down to dial the police, only to stop after seeing one word on his screen.
Goodbye.
"You're kidding, right? Restarting now?" he grunted, turning and staring down at the screen. He was still staring at the screen when the green bottle slammed into the back of his neck and shattered, knocking him backwards into blackness...
...which abruptly ended as he slammed into the earth. He scrambled backwards, feeling the back of his neck for lacerations, but feeling none. He got to his feet, turning to confront the crazy drunk, and stopped dead.
The road was gone.
The streetlamps too.
Trees, naked and grey, clutched at the heavens like monstrous hands. Mist obscured most of the ground and the grass crunched under his feet as he turned to take in his surroundings.
"Goddammit."
Post by
Atik
Logan grunted, picking himself up off the ground and standing. "Right. Anyway." He commented, brushing himself off.
Jonas watched him a moment. "Hrmm? Anyway?"
"Well, sitting here isn't doing us any good." The man shrugged. "I figure we might as well start walking. We're bound to find something eventually." He said, beginning to walk.
"That..." Jonas blinked. "That's hardly a sound plan." He observed. Realizing he didn't have anything better, however, he hurried after Logan.
The two continued on, making their way through the forest, eyes occasionally moving upwards to stare in aw at the canopy high above their heads. The world seemed quite silent, save the crunch of their footsteps and the occasional bird or gust of wind. A sudden rustling drew both their attentions to the shadows between the trees.
"Did you, uh, hear that?" Jonas questioned, stepping closer to Logan.
The other man nodded. "Yeah." He said, watching the shadows carefully.
All around them the sound seemed to echo, bouncing between trees and surrounding them in a growl. A leaf crunched, Jonas spinning to look behind them. Logan's pupils danced between the corners of his eyes.
"W-where is it?" Jonas wondered. A branch snapped, and he spun suddenly; Logan's form being thrown past him, a mound of fur attached to his front. The worg growled and snapped its jaws at the man; saliva spitting outwards and into his face. His hands were raised; gripping just below the base of the neck and holding the creature up, its front paws scratching at his biceps and prompting him to wince in pain, his face turning red as he tried to keep the worg off him.
"A little help?" Logan managed to shout, catching a lucky break as the claws of the canine suddenly caught on the fabric of his jacket. The beast pulled, attempting to tear itself free for the second.
Jonas stepped back, glancing around frantically for something to use as a weapon. Grabbing at a stick, he hefted it into the air; swinging down at the worg. With a crack, it splintered; exploding off the beast without so much as giving it pause. "Uhh... that didn't work..." He observed, stepping back. There was a tear, the fabric of one of Logan's sleeves tearing free and revealing his pale flesh beneath. In panic, Jonas rushed the hound; slamming his shoulder into its side.
Then it was his turn to be sent tumbling with the pile of fur, the worg yelping in surprise before growling and quickly breaking out from under Jonas. The man coughed, picking himself up from the ground as the canine circled him.
"Hey Fido!" Logan suddenly shouted, getting to his feet quicker and withdrawing a small swiss army knife. Gripping it, he pulled the largest knife portion free. The worg growled, turning to face the source of the noise. It tensed, ready to pounce.
A screeching sound echoed through the trees, like a whistle blowing across the forest. The worg paused, looking around briefly before racing off into the distance. Logan blinked, watching Jonas pick himself up.
"What the &*!@ just happened?" He asked, Jonas shrugging as his only response. Both looked in the direction the beast had fled to.
"Should we, you know, follow it?" Jonas asked.
Logan sighed, considering the option.
Post by
oneforthemoney
Logan looked at the shattered stick Jonas had used. “I’m going to say no…”
“Alright. Then can we go with my ‘road’ idea? I’m still completely in favour of that. I mean, I’m all for adventure, but eaten by wolves after wandering into the woods high seems like a terrible ending. Especially as I’m wearing a red coat,” he said, plucking at his jacket, “and I could not bear the red riding hood angle for my obituary.”
“Road?”
“Yeah. The things with pavement cars travel on and...Well, i'd hate to spoil the surprise. Or a bus stop or something transportation inclined to ferry us yonder. Away from wolves who try and eat people and people who train wolves with whistles.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Well, good to know. But I wasn’t planning on mugging you…”
“For the bus,” Logan cut in sharply. “Or a cab, or whatever.”
“Oh.” Jonas laughed. “Right, yeah. No. I don’t…either. Much, anyway. I maybe have like, parking meter quarters or whatever but those are, you know, Canadian. And apparently we’re in some sort of dwarfless Oz so they’re like, worth not as much as your quarters but…Wait, does Oz use money?”
“Jonas.” Logan cut in with forced patience. “Focus.”
“Oh! Right. Hey. We can always hitchhike.”
“Yeah. Okay. Which way were you going?” Logan asked.
“Uh…” Jonas looked to the pure blue sky uncertainly, watching the puffy figures of clouds which scuttled across wistfully. “I was just…walking. Figured I’d come across something sooner or later,” he said.
Logan sighed. “Good a plan as any.”
He failed to make the first move. After a minute, when Jonas did, Logan following the red jacket the other wore into the forest. For some time there was only the soft crunch of the frost glazed grass beneath their feet and the low moan of the westerly wind.
It was the sound which first alerted Joshua he was no longer alone. That steady crunch of footsteps which travels so clearly in the still forests. Finding his feet he looked about, quiet lest he be heard. He listened. One, maybe two people. Or fifteen, or a herd of goddam giraffes, what the $%^& did he know of wood lore? Jack frosty #$%^ all. He was a city boy. Ask him what sign someone had spray painted on the wall and he could tell you that it was clearly paint, because he was born in the suburbs, so how was he supposed to know the tags of gangs or urban artists or whatever? Joshua whipped his head about, but the noise seemed to come from all sides. Was it a lion? A tiger? Or combining the worst of both worlds, a liger? The sounds were getting closer.
“!@#$,” Joshua swore. He grabbed the nearest tree and tried to climb it, but even with his emaciated build the branches were too weak to support him and cracked ominously when he put any weight on it. He abandoned the project, dropping to the ground with a thump. Whirling about, he faced the forest, back against the tree, and pulled out his balisong. The sound grew closer. He waited, expectant, but nothing revealed itself to his frantic gaze. Then, he realized why.
Joshua suddenly spun around the tree with a cry he hoped the other would assume was bloodlust. Apparently they did, because the person he came face to face with made a sound which was certainly not. A man, young, in a red jacket threw himself backwards and to the ground.
“You won’t sneak up on me a second time!” Joshua shouted. “Watch out! I’m nobody’s fool! Nobody gets the drop on Joshua!” The back of his head chose that moment to throb. The man on the ground stared up in amazement at the sudden appearance of the boy. Joshua glanced past him and found a second man staring at him.
“What?” he snarled fiercely, carried away by the emotion of the moment and masculine insecurity. “You think I can’t do it? I’ll take you both on. I’m a hard ass mother. You think you can take me? I got butterflies!” He twirled his knife in one hand, the blade and handles clicking frantically.
“Dude! Calm down!” the one still standing called.
“I am extremely calm!”
“Then put down the knife.”
“You put down yours.”
“I don’t have a knife." Logan thought for a second. "Out. Calm down.”
“Can I get back up?” the one on the ground asked.
“You stay out of this. Which of you are drunk?”
“What?”
“Look,” Jonas began as calmly as he could. “The ice on the grass is melting against my ass. My pants are gonna get all wet. It is cold and I don’t want to walk around with frozen ass.”
“Wet your pants all you like you stay right there!” Joshua screamed, aiming his knife at the man who quickly raised his arms in the universal sign of surrender. Joshua glanced between them and flicked the knife back and forth to keep both covered. “Now where am I?”
The one on the ground shrugged again. “Oz.”
“What?”
“I’m Jonas by the way.”
“Oh. Joshua. Hi.”
“Dude, seriously, what the #$%^.”
“I’m asking the questions here!”
“We don’t know!” Logan snapped back.
“Then why were you sneaking up on me?”
“Dude! Calm. Your @#$%!”
“Never! Now which of you hit me with the bottle.”
“What bottle?” Logan snapped.
“The green one.”
“Green?” Jonas asked, suddenly more interested than terrified. “Like the one I found in the gutter? The one that expels smoke?”
Logan looked down with interest at Jonas. “What? Smoke? You too?”
Jonas kept his arms up, as Joshua had automatically pointed the knife at his new source of interest. “Er, yeah. Smoke bottle. I opened it and got blasted with it. Then I woke up here.”
“What?” Joshua lowered his knife slowly. “A green bottle?”
Jonas slowly lowered his arms. He kept an eye on the sliver of steel in Joshua’s hand warily. “Yeah. I was sitting by the road, found a bottle, opened it, and woke up here.”
“Same,” Logan said.
Slowly, Joshua lowered his blade. “Yeah. Some drunk guy smashed a green bottle into my head. And…yeah.”
The three stood there, a moment of dawning realization, recognizing the intersecting threads of their own lives. “Wow,” Logan finally said, taking it upon himself to vocalize their situation. “What even the #$%^?”
Post by
355559
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Stabhorn
"Okay guys," Andy paused, considering that statement, "if you are guys. Let's all just take a deep breath and think about our options here."
The snakemen looked at each other. "What does sssssnack think it is doing?" One asked, forked tongue flicking outwards.
The other leered at Andy in a very unpleasant, and rude, manner, "Perhapssss it thinks it shall be able to talk its way out of our lunch, Hassan?"
Andy brightened, "That's an excellent idea! Well, it's been nice chatting with you chaps, but I believe I must be going now. Even if this isn't just a dream brought on by exhaustion, which I suspect, I do not have the time to try any delicacies. I'm sure I sound delicious, but thank you for understanding." Andy strode away from the snakes.
As soon as he was past the tree line, he took off at a dead run. "Too bad I can't fly in this dream." The sounds of his dinner companions soon followed, slithering through the woods on powerful tails.
"Get back here!" Hassan yelled.
"Of course not!" Andy shouted back, "Why would I ever do that?" He rolled his eyes and kept running, suddenly changing directions. "Snakemen are stupid."
And that was when he ran right into a wall, falling squarely on his rump. It was a green, wet, scaly wall, complete with arms, fangs and an angry disposition. Before Andy could scramble up, the snakeman grabbed him by the neck and lifted him above his head, "I've got him Hassan!"
Hassan's voice echoed out of the woods in reply, a good distance away, "Hold onto the sssslippery little minnow!"
"Obviously," Andy gagged, trying to speak around the crushing grip, "We've gotten off on the wrong foot. Let's start again; Hi, I'm Andy."
The snakeman bit him in the arm, and blood began to spill from a dozen small punctures. Andy cried out and the thing tightened his grip, cutting off all air supply, "Shut up!"
Hassan slithered out of the woods, "Good job. Kill him and we can eat."
The other snakeman smiled, "Don't worry, he'll be dead in a few more seconds."
Andy writhed, but was helpless to break free from the iron grip. He couldn't do anything! The strong green arm crushed him. In a fit of mindless panic, Andy ripped his Iphone out of his pocket and shoved it down the snakeman's throat.
The creature blinked, choking on the square device. Suddenly, its skin began to sizzle and it dropped Andy, who gasped for breath. The snakeman screamed, falling to the ground and thrashing like a dying snake.
"Enark!" Hassan hovered over his fallen companion, unsure of what to do, "What's happening?"
But Enark was too far gone to hear Hassan's inquiry. The Snakeman had giant, burning holes burned through him. And soon, nothing of Enark remained but a charred skeleton. The Iphone fell from the snakeman's skull and hit the ground. Not understanding why the phone had killed the creature, Andy nonetheless scrambled over and grabbed it.
Horrified, Hassan looked from the skeleton, to the Iphone, to Andy himself, and then fled screaming back into the forest. "I'm in a dream where Iphones take the place of swords." Shrugging, Andy slid the phone back into his pocket. Ripping off a piece of his shirt and tied it around his arm to stop the bleeding. It hurt like fire, but he could ignore it.
He set off into the forest at a brief walk. Soon, he came upon a small group of people. He arrived just in time to see a winged woman vanish into the trees. Smiling broadly, he stepped up to them, "Hello, dream-people!"
Post by
Monday
"I'm dreaming. This is stupid and I'm dreaming," Joshua stated, turning and beginning to walk away. "But I can't be dreaming because I wouldn't dream up something this monumentally stupid."
"I take offense to that!" Jonas cried. "This is only moderately stupid. It would take something like a large, anthropomorphic chicken to make this
monumentally
stupid."
Joshua opened his mouth to reply (while Logan merely rolled his eyes), when a new person stepped out from the trees. "Hello, dream-people!" he called. Jonas twitched violently, then turned in a smooth and unconcerned motion, raising an eyebrow. Logan folded his arms, watching the newcomer silently. Joshua flipped around, knife coming back up for what felt like the fiftieth time.
Silence reigned for a moment or two, only to become abruptly broken as Logan cleared his throat. "You're lost as well?" he asked.
"Yup!" Andy replied. "And almost killed by giant snake people! Have you run into any of them?"
"No snake people here," Joshua said, shaking his head. "Just kidnapping bird women."
"Be specific!" Jonas chimed in. "Do you mean a bird woman kidnapping someone, or someone kidnapping bird women?"
Joshua glowered at Jonas for a moment. "You were @#$%ing watching."
"Irrelevant," Jonas said, nodding briskly at the newcomer. "He wasn't."
"He has a point," Logan deadpanned, glancing over at Joshua with a completely straight face.
"I hate you all," Joshua stated. "Just for the record."
"Noted," Logan replied, turning back to the newcomer. "I suggest we leave before any more of the harpies show up."
"Where are we going?" Andy asked, raising an eyebrow and moving to follow them.
"Hell if I know," Logan said with a shrug. "But anywhere is better than here. Let's just pick a direction and go until we find something."
"Fine with me," Andy said with a shrug. The destination was irrelevant, as he was mostly just relieved to be in the presence of people who weren't trying to eat him (yet).
Joshua eventually clicked the knife shut, stowing it back into the handwarmer (along with his hands. It was still bloody cold). "So as we were saying, before we were rudely interrupted," he said after a moment. "Green bottles. Were you hit by one as well?"
Logan and Jonas both shook their heads, but to Joshua's great surprise, Andy nodded. "Yup," he said. "Somebody mentioned something about 'the cycle continuing' or something like that."
"Aha!" Jonas cried, making Joshua flinch. Logan merely rolled his eyes (again), preparing for some new diatribe (again). "The man being kidnapped by the harpy was beginning to speak of this very thing! It's obviously a plot to keep us in the dark!"
"Which obviously means that we're superheroes," Josh replied. "Nobody would kidnap us, and then go out of their way to bother a lowly group like us unless we're destined to save the universe, right?"
Jonas nodded knowledgeably, whereas Andy frowned, wondering whether he was being serious or not.
Any further conversation was stopped short by the sudden appearance of a cliff in front of them. As they approached cautiously, the mist parted to reveal a small incline leading down to a cobbled road, which stretched off into the gloom to their left and right. A crooked lamppost pierced the sky, providing almost no illumination. As a matter of fact, the land around the circle of light seemed to become darker, more foreboding. A farmhouse rose in the distance, with a small dirt path leading to it.
"Thank God that's not creepy or anything..." Josh muttered.
Post by
Atik
Through the trees, the Harpy fluttered, the chained boy swinging below her. Her clawed talons gripped the magical restraints, lifting him easily. Unfortunately, he was quite low; branching smashing as he smacked into them against his will. "Ow." He shouted, the yelp echoed with each new impact.
Suddenly, the sensation of falling filled him; the brown man flailing as the restraint faded away. Suddenly he smashed into a mass of sticks and branches, the Harpy touching down behind him. Pulling himself up, he quickly turned to face his abductor. His footing failed him upon the nest, however; the Earthling toppling back into a sitting position.
The black-feathered woman suffered no such problems, stepping forward slowly. She rose into a standing position, looking rather awkward in her mixture of Human and avian features. Her arms shifted into wings; their membranes held behind her as they stretched down to nearly her knees. Said knees were nearly the end of her fleshy legs, turning to rigid scales that splayed out into long talons, the dexterous toes finding footing easily. Her main torso was predominately Human, nude and beautiful. Wide hips shrunk into a thin waist, widening again to accommodate her noteworthy breasts. From her neck and shoulders, beads hung; sparkling in the light and illuminating her thin, predatory features. Eyes that locked onto Zack, her thin lips curving into a smile. A slight gust of wind ruffled her feathers and black hair, her beads jingling slightly as they bounced off each other.
"Well look at that. I think I found my lunch." Serai smiled, walking close and leaning down to examine the Human.
"A bird eating a human? Well that's some delicious irony." Zack commented, leaning away from the Harpy. "The only thing that could make it better is if I tasted like chick-" He stopped suddenly, the woman's foot planting itself on his stomach. Her back talon stuck down, wrapping itself up and pressing against his crotch. A long tongue escaped her lips, slipping by fanged teeth and running itself along his cheek.
"Salty, but not quite." She grinned. Pressing with her foot, she forced him onto his back, sticks snapping with his shifting weight. The Human winced, her grip on his privates proving rather uncomfortable. "But. Maybe we could find another use for you than food." She commented. "Something more long-term."
Zack blinked, the revelation of what she meant taking a moment to dawn on him. "Uh... Thanks but no thanks. I've been told I have commitment issues." He replied, hand reaching into his pocket. He winced suddenly, the foot tightening its grip and dragging him along. Serai hopped; wings fluttering as she moved backwards.
"Oh. I promise you. That won't be a problem." She smiled, tongue licking at her lips. She blinked, a rectangular device with rounded corners appearing in the Human's hands. "What's that?" She asked.
"You'll see." Zack grinned, pressing the screen of his phone. It suddenly snapped a picture of the Harpy, flashing brightly. Serai froze, releasing him. She leaned in slowly.
"S-shiny?" She asked, stuttering. There was another flash, Zack attempting to pull himself up and turn. He ran along the sticks, snapping them as he moved. Serai was faster, however; wings fluttering. "Shiny!" She cawed, talons slamming into the boy's back and knocking him forward. Her head moved down, legs straddling him as she bit at his hand, trying to grab the phone with her mouth.
Post by
oneforthemoney
Jonas suddenly stopped. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. The others turned to him in surprise.
“What?” Logan demanded.
“It’s cold as hell out here. Oh, also. Guys? A naked bird woman flew off with that guy!”
“...And?” Joshua asked.
Jonas passed his hands rapidly before him to try and impress the import of this to the others. “Guys, no, seriously, listen to me.” Jonas took a deep breath and as he spoke, he punctuated each with a movement of his hand. “A bird woman. With talons for feet. And wings for arms. Just kidnapped. Some guy.” He looked between Logan, Josh and Andy. “A. Bird woman.” He spread his hands and looked expectantly. The reaction was not long in coming.
First, Logan’s eyes slowly widened. He then reeled slightly as if punched in the forehead, and clapped a hand to his brow. “Oh my God!” he cried. “He’s right! What the…” He looked around suddenly at the snow-capped trees of the boreal forest. “What’s going on? Where the %^&* are we!”
“And snake people,” Andy reminded them.
“I know!” Jonas cried, but were any observant, there was an unmistakeable glee in his tone.
“I’m not getting any service!” Josh shrieked as he flipped through his phone. “Oh $%^&! I don’t have any service!”
“This place…” Logan murmured as he looked about. “This place…feels familiar though. Ugh! What is it? This is driving me nuts! What the hell! Are we going to just be picked up by bird people dropping from the sky? Is this all some sort of demented Hunger Games whatever the hell?”
“That’s not what that was about,” Andy said.
“I never read that book,” Jonas noted.
“No one read that book! People have only seen the movies! It’s the thinking girl’s goddam Twilight!” Logan screamed.
“Dude calm down!”
“How is this a time to be calm?”
“Despite the name of the later ones, there were very few bird people. None in fact. And that’s a very few,” Andy continued blithely.
“No reception. No nothing. I can’t get on the internet. Guys! I can’t get online!” Josh wailed. He thrust hsi phone at the sky, the sun glinting off the screen. “Internet! Why u no connect?”
“We’re screwed! Is there even a road? Look at that cottage?” Logan demanded, stabbing a finger at the home. “I bet a witch or something lives there!”
“This is the worst possible thing!” Josh cried.
“Oh, there are far worse things.”
All turned. Sitting beneath a tree was a young woman. Dressed in a checkered red and black wool sweater and hide pants, she wore a green cloak pulled over her eyes. Beneath her head lay propped a pack for a pillow, and by her hand, a musket. She was dressed for the cold, clearly, and several pouches hung about a wide buckled belt.
“Who the hell are you?” Logan demanded.
The woman reached up and tugged back her hood. Mangy brown hair, unkempt, fell free before green eyes flecked with gold, turned on the group, unimpressed. “I was the girl,” she began in a steady tone, “sleeping behind a tree. Now I’m the girl awake, and annoyed because I am not the former girl anymore.” She lowered her arms and glanced at their group. She snorted. “And you are seriously not dressed for Northrend.”
There was a moment of that stunned silence one finds when everyone’s thoughts have been suddenly derailed, of a scale that the media don’t even need to throw in a young attractive blonde as a casualty to get people’s attention. Even Josh had taken a respite from his phone to stare in stunned shock at the green hooded woman. “Where?” Logan finally choked out.
The woman pushed her hood back further and fixed a quizzical eye on them. “Northrend. Well, Grizzly Hills, specifically.”
Logan’s mind tried to reset, failed, and had to reboot. “That...doesn’t...what?”
“Oh my God she’s right,” Jonas breathed. Perhaps less encumbered by reality, as he owned a van, he seemed to be the first to come to himself fully. “Glass bottles of smoke. Harpies. Giant wolves. Hispanic looking people in the north. Random women sitting under trees dispensing advice.”
“I’m not random,” the girl growled. She pulled her hood down once more. “Tourists,” she muttered.
Joshua tried to find an expletive in his personal dictionary to express his emotional state. “By the Skull Throne!”
“This is awesome!” Jonas cried. He gripped his fists before his mouth with a high pitched squeal of delight.
Logan seized upon this as an anchor for his sanity. “Awesome?” He rounded on Jonas, all but grabbing the other man by the collar and shaking him. “Awesome!” he cried. “How the hell is this awesome!”
“Logan,” Jonas gasped through his excitement, eyes shining, smile from ear to ear. “Don’t you get it? We’re in a place where shooting fire out of your hands is a thing. A regular things! Flaming hands are things! So many things.”
“Exactly! Jonas! We’re in a place where werewolves are a thing. We just saw a man be kidnapped by a winged naked chick with bird feet. What the even #$%^! And this is normal here, Jonas. And so are the undead! Living corpses Jonas. Oh hell!” He began to spin around to try and see in all directions. “We’re in Northrend! That’s like, the hometown of everything %^&*ty in this place!”
“Home to some of us,” the girl grunted.
“I’m going to be a mage!”
“Shut up Jonas.”
“Watch your tongue around your sheep master. Your beard gives you no authority here!”
Joshua promptly doubled over and retched into the snow.
“There!” Logan jabbed a finger at their ill companion. “That’s a normal reaction to this! Why can’t you be more like Joshua?” Josh heaved again and leaned against the tree. “Instead of talking about that, maybe you should focus on trying to get home!”
Jonas looked steadily at the man in the blue sweater. “Logan. You know what I had back home? I had a van. A. Goddam. Van. It was burgundy. And that was awful. I was broke, and living in a van, and am here because I was actually willing to drink a bottle of green something I found in the gutter. Frankly, I don’t care if I never go home. I hit the bottom of the barrel. I went past the bottom of the barrel. I went to China through my barrel.
“I want to bend the fabric of reality, wield a sword, kill the undead, and turn my enemies into sheep. Sheep, Logan. Okay.” He shrugged. “Sure. I might get killed. Or maybe the only thing I’m good for is swinging a sword. But dammit Logan. This is going to be awesome and I refuse to let you $%^& all over my dreams. So clench your ass, hike up your pants, and calm the hell down.”
Joshua beginning to dry heaving by the tree was acutely audible in the silence which followed.
Post by
Atik
The silence continued on for several minutes, Logan's feet spread wide. Briefly, he looked ready to smack Jonas, attempt to knock some sort of sense back into him. His thoughts were shattered, however; a yawn echoing through the group and pulling the attention of the four men to the girl once more.
"You're all a bunch of nut jobs." She commented, stretched her arms high, bending her body side to side as she tried to wake herself up fully.
"You're one to talk miss 'let's sleep in the middle of the woods in Northerend'." Logan waved a hand at her. He froze suddenly, a glare catching his eyes, sharp enough to bisect a man.
Andy watched the staredown for what felt like an eternity, Logan's face twitching, his legs shaking, but his eyes never leaving the strange lock. "So... uh... right..." He began slowly, the woman's gaze snapping towards him, Logan letting out a sigh of relief as he visibly relaxed. "I don't suppose you know your way around here?"
"I might." She shrugged. "Depends on who's asking."
"Hey." Jonas snapped his fingers. "You didn't happen to see a bird-woman flying off with some guy, did you?" He grinned, excitement pratically sparking off him, his entire demeanor seeming to change as the recent realizations became clear to him.
"Can't say I did." She flicked a hand. "Like I said, I was having a nice rest before you lot woke me up with your your screaming and arguing and vomiting." She explained. "But, I might know where there's a Harpy nest, not too far from here."
"Might?" Logan blinked.
"How much you got?" She grinned.
"Absolutely nothing." Jonas exclaimed, he grin only vanishing as he realized the words that just left his mouth. "I mean... uh..."
The woman stared. "Come again?"
Logan sighed. "Zip, natta, abso-!@#$ing-lutely no money." He shrugged.
"Would you take an 'I owe you'?" Andy asked, grinning despite the sudden glare from Logan.
"You lot are gonna owe me." She sighed, starting off past them. Joshua coughed, turning as she passed and raising an eyebrow, suddenly looking back at the other men.
"Was... was that a yes?" Jonas asked. His shoulder was suddenly knocked aside, Logan hurrying after the woman.
Andy, Joshua, and Jonas stood still for a second. The formerly vomiting boy was the first to move, wiping his mouth free with a rag from his pocket before tossing the cloth aside. Andy stopped for a moment, quickly hurrying after.
Jonas remained ever longer, his grin slowly returning. "I'm in Azeroth." He reminded himself. "I'm. In. Azeroth." Chuckling, he hurried after, like an excited schoolboy on the first day of summer.
Logan's boots struck the ground hard, snapping grass and sticks under each step, echoing far compared to the woman's much quieter, longer strides. "Hey, wait up!" He exclaimed.
"If you keep making all that noise, half of Grizzly Hills will be on top of us." She stated simply, still moving.
"Well I said to wait up!" He exclaimed, reaching out and suddenly grabbing her arm. He winced, instantly regretting the decision as he limb tensed. He was suddenly pulled through the air, a dagger coming to his neck as he was turned around. She held him for a moment, letting the other men from Earth catch up and stare at the sight.
She was silent for a moment, suddenly shoving Logan away from her, the blue-sweatered man spinning to face her again. "What?" She snapped.
Logan reached up, rubbing his neck. He could feel the stared from his companions, his cheeks turning red, a mixture of adrenaline and excitement from what was nearly an altercation filling him, and a bit of embarrassment. "I was just going to ask you name." He said.
The woman blinked, staring.
Post by
oneforthemoney
She took a step back and crossed her arms. “My name’s Cyrene.”
“That’s a weird name.”
“Don’t make me kick your ass worse than I already have.” Her eyes slowly moved down. Logan, abruptly realizing something very important, threw his hands in front of his crotch. She smirked, laughed, turned and walked once more through the snowy field towards the woods leaving the terran alone in the cold, cold winter wind.
Jonas jogged up. “Whew!” he exclaimed, slapping a hand on Logan’s shoulder. “You guys are fast.” He looked closer at Logan’s bright red face. “You okay?”
“Fine what’s it to you! Everything is fine! Why wouldn’t it be fine! She didn’t see anything!”
“What?”
“Leaving!” Logan ran after the woman awkwardly.
“The hell was that about?” Josh asked, arriving at the tail end of Logan’s exclamations.
Jonas shrugged. “Got me. Hey. Which do you think I would do better as? Mage or warrior?”
Josh hummed with thought. “I think both of those need like…years of training.”
“Yeah. But,” Jonas said enthusiastically as they followed the others, “think about it. What if it turned out I had, like, special powers. Like, we were called to this world to help save it, and we were called because we have, like, special potential?”
“Wow,” Josh exclaimed. “That seems…seriously farfetched.”
“Oh come on. It’s like, staple of fantasy fiction.”
“Don’t break the fourth wall, man.”
“Maybe we can get a wardrobe. Check to see if there’s any lamp posts.”
“You’re not even taking this seriously are you?”
“Moi?” Jonas pressed a hand against his chest in mock hurt. “I’m taking this completely serious. Look at my serious face.”
“Tears of a clown.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Hey! Morons,” Cyrene called. She turned halfway towards them and let her eyes slide across them scathingly. “Shut up. Unless you plan on playing with the harpies.” She pointed up. As one, every eye travelled up, and found thick clumps of branches threaded close together, peopling the skeletal grip of the branches in immense nests. The yellow of old bones was visible, and from one, a skull looked down on them sorrowfully, as if ruminating on the fate of those who had come among those woods.
Jonas sucked in a sharp breath, then exhaled in a subdued whistle. “Sheeeeet.”
“Relax.” She jerked her rifle at the nests pointedly. “They’re empty. You can tell by all the snow on them still. Harpies like to clean them off as soon as they can.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Yeah. But not all of them will be. And I’ll be honest. If you idiots call down a swarm of harpies, it’s every man for himself, because this woman is going to be able to outrun all of you completely.” She pointed the musket at Logan. “Count on it.”
Logan raised his hands placating. “Okay, okay, got it.”
“No. You don’t.” She swung the gun back over her shoulder. Her eyes gleamed from beneath her emerald hood. “Just because they look like naked women doesn’t mean they’re up for a fling. Do you think they grab people for a quick lay?”
Andy looked up and into the hollows of the skull’s sockets. He blinked as some snow fell into his eyes. He shivered. Cyrene scoffed and turned, the hem of her cloak swishing in the newly fallen snow and delved once more into the threadbare forest of black trunks. The others followed her splash of green, slowly.
Post by
355559
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Atik
"This doesn't make sense..." Cyrene observed, gripping her rifle tight. "What the fel is it up to?"
"Are you sure there's a Harpy presence here?" Joshua asked, looking at her.
"What?" The woman asked. "Of course I am. Did you not look at the nests?"
"That... uh... proves there were Harpies..." Jonas interjected. "But you said most of them were, you know, empty."
Cyrene blinked, turning towards the others.
"So she might have found the place." Logan nodded. "And wants to use it."
"Then she would have already taken him." She insisted. "Exactly like I told you. They're animals, they just use it to make more of themselves. They don't play with their victims."
The New Yorker watched her for a moment, waiting for her to suddenly snap her attention back on the nest. "You're making a lot of assumptions." He stated, standing and stepping forward suddenly.
Cyrene blinked, trying to keep track of the events of increasing stupidity as they happened. Logan dropped low to the ground, shouting a greeting that made the Harpy go rigid in reaction, her head turning as the man attempted to slide down the hill. And then, as if stupid icing on the stupid cake of idiocy, he suddenly slipped, rolling down the cliff side before finally stopping with a groan of pain.
The Harpy left her prey behind, seemingly not seeing the rest of Logan's group, and instead descending upon him quickly, talons gripping him and lifting him into the air. Her wings flapped, defying physics as she rose and tossed the newcomer onto the large nest as well. It was a brief respite, however. Like a bullet, Serai darted downwards, talons rested against his throat and ready to kill him.
"Explain yourself." She insisted, leaning close. Logan's face flushed with color anew, the situation quickly falling out of his original plan. "And then I'll kill you."
"Hold on!" Zack suddenly called, picking himself up carefully. "He's with me. Sort of. I mean..." He stared for a second, Serai turning and waiting for some sort of explanation. "Look, just don't kill him if you want me to help you."
"Right, uh... we just sort of came to try to save him from being eaten by Harpies and such. And, even thought he doesn't seem to be bitten into yet, we kind of need him as our token minority. And maybe he'll have some information about how we got here, but he'll at least strengthen out numbers." Logan rambled.
Serai looked back to him, he claw sliding off his neck slowly as she pulled further from his face. Slowly, she blinked; processing his explanation before stopping, eyes widening. "We?"
Before an explanation could be given, both she and Logan went rigid as a ringing sound echoed out, the air between them smoking where the bullet had whizzed by their faces. The Harpy was again airborne in an instant, Logan rolling to look back towards the hill.
Cyrene, seemingly recovering from having to witness Logan's spectacular stupidity, was now sliding down the hill much more gracefully, rifle coming to bear as she trained it on the Harpy. Behind her; Jonas, Joshua, and Andrew quickly moved to make their ways down the hill, Jonas falling and rolling in a manner not unlike Logan, while the other two slowly climbed down. "Okay, you got your weird kicks." The woman shouted up to the boys still in the nest. "Now I'm going to splatter her bird brains all over here before she can start making more of herself!"
Serai let loose a screech, suddenly moving to claw at Cyrene, only for her talons to scratch at the rife, brought quickly to block the descent. Pushing the Harpy back, the Human took aim, firing another shot. Serai was fast, however, and the bullet whizzed through the air again. Her wings flapped forward, a suddenly gust of strong wind billowing forth and throwing Cyrene backwards.
Logan and Zack both quickly rose, trudging over the nest and dropping to the ground below, Logan once again ending up on his stomach during the attempt. The large man grabbed him, pulling him to his feet and tossing him forward as the two Women moved again. Cyrene got to her feet, quickly firing even as her gun was suddenly raised by a hand on the barrel. The shot went over Logan's shoulder, and he suddenly released the gun, shouting in pain as his hand went to his ear.
She blinked, the man dropping to a knee and clearly in pain from the sound, eyes squeezed shut as the ringing echoed through his head. "Release me!" Serai shouted, prompting Cyrene to look up and see the Harpy being held by Zack, his arms going under her wings and around her neck, preventing her from taking flight.
Andrew rushed over, dropping to Logan's side and holding up his index finger in front of the man. "Hey, hey! You okay? How many fingers am I holding up?" He asked, voice shaking in fear at the current events.
Logan blinked, looking at him. "What?" He shouted, groaning.
"Fingers, how many?" Andrew repeated, louder this time.
"One you idiot! I'm deaf, not blind!"
Jonas and Joshua stood back. Josh began first. "So... yeah. Naked bird chick." He gestured to Serai. "Can she talk?"
"Of course I can talk, filthy Human!" Serai stated. "I swear. Your species can be so dumb sometimes, I must question how some of you live so long." He huffed, struggling to escape the rather embarrassing hold she found herself in.
"Good, now I can shoot her." Cyrene grumbled, raising her rifle against as she stepped over Logan and his attempts to slowly rise.
"Maybe, you know, we can reason with her instead?" Jonas suggested, causing her to give pause. She looked at him, then around at the rest of the group, eyes wide with bewilderment.
Post by
Stabhorn
"Why should I reason with her?" Cyrene asked, staring at Jonas with a newfound understanding of his apparent idiocy, "This creature would have killed us all or worse given the chance! I'll just shoot her now and be done with it."
Andy looked the bird-woman in the eye, "Maybe this some-sort of misunderstanding? It wouldn't hurt to at least ask."
"Okay," Josh stepped to up the harpy, "What is your name?"
Serai glared at him, claws scraping against the ground as she struggled in Zach's grasp, "I have nothing to say to you, disgusting bald monster!"
"I'm not bald!" Josh retorted angrily.
"You can call her Serai," Zach said.
"Our companion here wants to kill you," Logan pointed to Cyrene, "Can you give us a reason not to let her, Serai?"
Andy began to jump up and down, "Ooh! Ooh! Can I be our honorary ambassador?"
Jonas glanced at Andy askance, "You? Didn't you kill a snakeman?"
"Yea," Andy shrugged, "But they wanted to eat me. I tried to politely decline, but they refused. I was then forced to resort to
Aggressive Negotiations
!"
Logan shook his head, "Yea, I think not."
Andy leaned over to Jonas and Josh, "That's from Star Wars," he whispered.
"I know," Josh said, attention focused on the captive harpy.
"Do you know which episode?" Andy asked fervently.
Jonas rolled his eyes, "We don't care. Let's focus here please."
Andy smiled, whispering confidentially, "Episode Two!"
"Oh my gosh," Logan spun on Andy, "Kindly shut up so we can talk with this harpy!"
Cyrene rolled her eyes at the lot of them, "I'm giving you all about thirty seconds before I shoot that bird in the the face."
"Serai," Zach said patiently, "Let's negotiate."
"Aggressively," Andy chimed in.
Jonas shot a glare towards the geek, "Someone gag him please."
Serai's eyes could have lit a fire, "Just kill me then!"
Cyrene raised her gun, "That's the smartest thing you've ever said, featherbrain!"
Post by
355559
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.