[Closed Hina, Nir'wei, Yavanna] Thundermaw Stampede

[Hina]

I am quitting standing trials. It is clear that nobody here wants to rp with me nor do I think I will be missed in the slightest.

If you are a newbie, you should know that mods and even other players can ruin your character at any time and for any power trippy reason. In my time here, I have had mods simply not reply to my posts for weeks and weeks at a time, had my character waste half a season because a mod made up a rule to have my character thrown in jail, been made pregnant against my will, and also been assigned penalties against my will just because a non mod thought to give me a hard time. You can do a bit of research and find that only staff members have accomplished anything noteworthy in this game, because they are the only ones immune from random bullshit.

I would not reccomend this game to anyone looking to accomplish anything in a roleplaying game.

[Yavanna]

⌘ Ashan 9th, 719 ⌘
⌘ Mood: Calm
⌘ Thoughts: This should be fun
⌘ Company: Hina
⌘ Current Theme: Beautiful Dangerous

⌘ The Thunder Priestess tightened the plate gloves her hands had been slipped into, making her way to meet the group that was to deal with the Thundermaw situation in the Stormlands. Wearing her black leather armor for this occasion she sauntered up toward the gate where they were to meet for a briefing.

As the second to arrive she caught the tail end of the details, piecing things together. So no matter what happened, as long as these creatures were dealt with it be a job well done. She was grateful for that but hoped what skills she had would be enough to be a contribution to the mission. Approaching the girl that had arrived before her, she put on her fakest smile and waved.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who fancies fists over swords."

she said trying to break the ice, attempting to be personable. The naer's eyes traced over the woman, mentally sizing her up, see if she could pull her own weight. From what Yavanna understood these Thundermaw creatures were dangerous, and the last thing she needed was someone slowing her down if things got dicey.

Besides the last time she was with a Lightning Knight, the pink haired girl bailed on the mission. She was hopeful this one was a little more serious about her job given the level of risk this mission held with it. Until then she'd play nice, awaiting the final one to arrive. ⌘

"Speech"

[Nir'wei]

"You're going to need armour," Xithyria growled in warning, the hulking Ithecal dressed up in his own finest gear, shining as usual, even though he wouldn't be accompanying them. "And a shield. Big one." He had one of those too, a square tower shield the likes of which even the strongest fellow knights struggled to lift, let alone wield in a combat situation. Then again, this was always the advice he gave. Every day, for every situation. Almost as if his mentor had some hidden agenda. Wouldn't that be a surprise?

"I don't need armour, because I'm not fighting. I'm hunting." The tightness in Xithyria's face was unmistakable. "And if I'm so busy holding a shield, pray tell, how am I supposed to fire a bow?" Said bow, along with his Storm Quiver were both strapped to his back by a leather case, along with his long-handled longsword strapped to his hip in case things went south. "As usual, I appreciate the concern, but this... this is my jam." And it most certainly was. Xithyria, for all his heavy-handed concern, was the one that had brought it to his attention; a hunt against not one, but a full pack of Thundermaws. One of the deadliest creatures to grace the Stormlands, the biggest source of worry for the Justiciars. So much so, they were supposed to be outsourcing the problem to any willing volunteers. Cue Nir'wei... and...

His eyes rolled over the other two, and noted their complete lack of actual weapons. He tried not to let his jaw drop, but the expression should have said it all. "You two are barking mad," he swiftly told them both, giving a sharp nod to the Justiciar already there before whistling twice with a high trill. They might have been just beyond the gates of Rharne but it was still a crowded place; Traveller, the Sohr Khal, found it difficult to land nearby without causing much of a stir, but he eased slowly among the passing crowds, rumbling his displeasure with wings tightly-folded. "You, whoever you are, just stand back and try not to get yourself killed," he muttered with a vague point at Hina as he climbed onto the winged beast and settled comfortably in its saddle. "Yavanna," he said clearly with eyes locked with hers, "I'd tell you to do the same, but I already know you're not smart enough to heed my words, so I'll just say, it was nice knowing you."

This wasn't a casual spar. Nor was it a regular scouting mission. They'd been lucky that the Thundermaws had reached this far without killing someone, but if they left it too long, if they made a mistake... peoples lives were at stake. Not just their own, but innocent farmers, hunters, tradesmen, travellers. To be honest, seeing them both with their fists out, he'd already written them both off as useless. Which meant everything was down to picking them off from the air, one by one, separation and obliteration, divide and conquer.

Brilliant. A sharp two-note whistle and Traveller spread his wings wide, casting off with a buffet of wind that knocked the hats off a fair few passing by, and swirling up a cloud of dust and dirt in his wake as they soared together into the air.

[Hina]

I am quitting standing trials. It is clear that nobody here wants to rp with me nor do I think I will be missed in the slightest.

If you are a newbie, you should know that mods and even other players can ruin your character at any time and for any power trippy reason. In my time here, I have had mods simply not reply to my posts for weeks and weeks at a time, had my character waste half a season because a mod made up a rule to have my character thrown in jail, been made pregnant against my will, and also been assigned penalties against my will just because a non mod thought to give me a hard time. You can do a bit of research and find that only staff members have accomplished anything noteworthy in this game, because they are the only ones immune from random bullshit.

I would not reccomend this game to anyone looking to accomplish anything in a roleplaying game.

[Faith Augustin]

Joining with consent from Nir'wei and Hina

"I understand entirely," Faith said to this Justicar Stalwart, whose name she did not know but who had sent three people out on this mission, her voice low and even pleasant sounding. "But three versus a dozen dangerous creatures, potentially, is not good odds. You have, apparently, no medic among them and you allowed them to leave when two of them fight with fists? You do understand that this is not tactically sound?" She didn't wait for an answer, she was already standing. "I'm going to go and help them. We need to make sure that this situation does not happen again. I'll raise it with your seniors, you have no need to be involved further." He looked at her with an open mouth as the short, delicately built young woman turned and walked out. "Hey, hang on there a bit!" He managed to get out, but Faith had stood, nodded and left.

She had no time for such foolishness this trial; one of the three people ~ and the only one she knew ~ was her friend.

So, the young woman climbed onto her pegasus, and the pair took flight to the Stormlands. She'd got as much information from the Stalwart as she was going to but, upon her return she would be arranging a meeting of the Alliance and trying to work out some standard procedure where Order of the Adunih members joined the Lightning Knights on missions which were rated as high risk or where there were three or more, or where two out of the three were fairly new or.. something. She was fretting, there was no doubt, but then, she needed to focus. So, she scanned the horizon ahead and there, in the distance, she saw the unmistakable sight of a Sohr Kahl. Faith's spirits lifted at that sight, because it meant that Nir'wei was close by. Urging her pegasus on, the pair flew close to him.

Normally, Faith would stop and have a conversation with Nir'wei. There would be hugs and greetings, laughter and sharing of stories. But the other thing that Faith saw was the two women, two thundermaw eating the remains of a cow and then, of all things, one of the women lifted into the air and left the other alone, one the ground! Faith let out a low groan but then the woman on the ground ran for cover, so that was something. As soon as she was able to, Faith held on to the pegasus with her knees and lifted her crossbow. She was a good shot with it, no doubt and she took her time to aim.

Of course, the other thing was that she was married to a man who was, quite frankly, a genius and so, as the bolt embedded in the thundermaw, it exploded. The creature screamed and Faith let out a low whistle as it just seemed to irritate it more. "Good trial!" Faith called, apparently cheerily, to Nir'wei and the flying woman. "I have five more of these modified bolts. Everyone alright?"

[Nir'wei]

For a moment he lost himself. It was easier than it sounded. The rush of air blasting in his face and whipping in his tangled hair, the familiar and yet still alien lurch as his body lifted higher than it had any right to go... those moments in the sky, he wasn't in Rharne anymore. He wasn't even on Idalos. He was somewhere else, a land of blue and white, perpetually cold from the altitude, yet temperate, with the familiar twin-suns beating down on him from above. Oh, how he longed for wings of his own, though for now he could settle for Traveller's assistance, guiding him straight-up in a nearly vertical incline until his head felt dizzy. By the time they'd leveled out again, the two women from earlier weren't even specks anymore. No, it probably wasn't the right altitude to search for the Thundermaws; from up here they'd be just as invisible. However, it didn't matter if he saw them, so it hardly mattered.

"So," Archailist said with a casual tone that could have put Xithyria's gravel-sucking grumbling to shame, "you realise that if it really were as easy as just hanging over their heads and shooting them down from above, there's no reason any knight would have as much concern as they do. It's not as if there aren't several hundred Storm Rocs, all with perfectly competent flyers, hanging around specifically for this purpose." Well no. It probably wouldn't be that easy, no. In fact he had very little understanding of what these creatures could be capable of. For perhaps the first time, he really started to question the senior officers that had orchestrated this mission. Especially to think that he wasn't a fully trained knight yet... and those other two... he shook his head at the thought with a soft sigh. The one advantage they had was the fact that they were entering undetected. Ambush tactics could work wonders in the right situations, especially given their aerial advantage. Attack from the air, hard and repeatedly.

Archailist's head cocked. "And what if you didn't." What?

Traveller's wing dipped before Nir'wei could form a proper question to the vague prompt, stealing the air from his lungs as the world around him lurched and suddenly span to the right. The blue vibrant sky and washed green drop far below merged together like blending watercolours. Through the cacophony of screaming wind and noise he managed to unhook his bow, drawing it to his side just as the Sohr Khal's wings snapped wide and the world lurched to a screaming halt still a fair distance from the ground, suspended in the air currents above a rolling field. "I can smell the blood from here," Greyhide muttered with the sensation of a wrinkled snout, and Nir could soon see why. Dead cows and sheep. Ripped apart and stripped of meat already. "Can't be more than a few breaks old." From the spread of the blood, it looked like a massacre. One, even a few wouldn't possibly make such a mess unless they were truly savage beasts. "Behind you, in the plateau. Third from the left." Traveller spun and he saw them. Two.

The pack had already spread out, claiming several carcasses at once in small clusters. Good. He drew back an arrow and nearly fired it, just before his target exploded. Not enough to kill it - which, in itself, was even more unnerving - but enough to weaken the beast, making it snarl and struggle, clearly crippled from the blast. His gaze snapped straight up again, and... "Ho, Faith! Wasn't expecting you out here!" Looking back to the creatures and noting the others hadn't managed to do anything, he sighed softly and loosed the arrow at the second Thundermaw of the group, nailing it in one of its back legs. Enough to send a shriek, but what really did it was the sharp burst of crackling yellow electricity as the lightning infusion of the arrows spread through the beast, paralysing its limb. "We're all good, I think, just need to keep these guys apart! Fire to scatter, aim for the big groups and distract them!"

With that, he broke away, selecting the next group nearest, a cluster of three crowded around the nearly picked-clean carcass of a sheep, now scurrying towards the two distressed Thundermaws and hissing, glowing goo leaking from the corners of their too-wide mouths. Propped high into the air between them and their friends, he fired arrow after arrow, most striking their sinuous bodies, a few glancing head blows... but nothing that could stop them. Only slow them down, a temporary nuisance as shocks of electricity coursed through their bodies with every direct hit, leaving them convulsing and thrashing on the ground, but too wild to land a second blow that might cripple them properly. "Yeah, okay. I'll admit, I thought arrows were enough to kill them."

Archailist watched with unreadable eyes swirling with grey. "Mmm." He seemed far away, thoughts languid and slow. "Isn't that interesting."

[Hina]

I am quitting standing trials. It is clear that nobody here wants to rp with me nor do I think I will be missed in the slightest.

If you are a newbie, you should know that mods and even other players can ruin your character at any time and for any power trippy reason. In my time here, I have had mods simply not reply to my posts for weeks and weeks at a time, had my character waste half a season because a mod made up a rule to have my character thrown in jail, been made pregnant against my will, and also been assigned penalties against my will just because a non mod thought to give me a hard time. You can do a bit of research and find that only staff members have accomplished anything noteworthy in this game, because they are the only ones immune from random bullshit.

I would not reccomend this game to anyone looking to accomplish anything in a roleplaying game.

[Faith Augustin]

The woman who had taken flight continued in that vein and flew off. Faith shook her head, once, but then focused on what needed to be focused on - the here and now. Nir'wei was firing at one of the other groups - his logic was sound and Faith held on with her legs as her pegasus' wings beat and she raised her crossbow once again. Using the second of her modified bolts, she took the time to aim into the area where the first bolt had done so much damage. It embedded deep inside the creature and this time, the damage was much more extensive. As she released the bolt, Faith breathed in, just slightly, but then as the creature fell, she released that bated breath.

At least, she considered, they could die.

"Got it!" Faith called, in reply to Nir'wei. She was in complete agreement with him about his plan, that made sense and so, she focused on following it. Fire to scatter them was good logic and so, rather than kill, that was what she did. The reality was that this was more than tricky and she was fairly sure that they were completely outmatched, in terms of brute strength. But, that just meant that they had to be clever and Faith briefly considered that this was going to be one of those situations where Padraig's eyebrow somehow managed to communicate concerned and disapproving by the simple expedient of raising a quarter inch. She knew that look, rather too well in fairness and Faith knew that she should, at the very least, have brought Alissa with her.

So far, they had managed to at least stay alive, Faith thought, but these things were damn hard to kill and, were they not both flying, things would be very much more difficult again. As the groups started to scatter, Faith used another modified bolt on one of the larger creatures. "Nir'wei!" Faith called. "Do we have more of a plan than this?" They should, she thought, have more of a plan than "shoot them till they disperse" - but maybe that was all they could do at the moment.

Shule, the little diri from Lake Lovalus, flitted about and encouraged Faith as best she could. Then, the effervescent little creature fluttered at speed over to Nir'wei.

"What do you want her to do, Nir'wei? We need to douse these creatures!! Lets do it!!"

[Nir'wei]

Well, he thought to himself. Faith's arrows could at least do more damage than his. The question was if she had enough to dispatch the whole pack... not to mention if they could actually be cornered long enough to do away with them, since all the screeching and explosions was attracting the attention of all the smaller pockets at once, attracting them towards their now-dead packmate and scrambling over one-another in an attempt to reach high enough to latch onto one of the flying duo. They didn't come close, not even with their long whip-like tails, but he didn't like the look of the thick foaming goo dripping down their chins... and, as he swooped a little closer to try and line up a direct shot through one of the creature's skulls, his suspicions were confirmed. Its lips struggled to purse around rows of short but razor-sharp teeth, and it spat globs of the stuff at Traveller, forcing them to both barrel out and climb quickly back into the sky. Those animal carcasses weren't just picked clean to the bone, but the bones themselves had liquefied into off-white sludge puddles. Whatever that stuff was, probably not a good idea to get it on skin, or clothes.

"Would you believe me if I said the original plan was to use stealth?" he called back, pretty sure she wouldn't. In truth, he hadn't come in with much of a plan. Thundermaws were too volatile and dangerous to have any extensive records done on them, and according to Xithyria, very few knights had ever done more than managed to scare them off by a mixture of luck and outnumbering. At the moment they had neither. Though... looking from the way the Thundermaws immediately scattered from the corpse of their dead friend, it seemed they'd definitely succeeded in spooking some of them with that show of force. Not enough to rout all of them, but it was a start. "I... I might have an idea though."

Cyshe burst into view next to Faith at the same moment as Shule flittered over to Nir, Arch turning away with an instantly dismissive gesture while Grey sniffed and lifted a paw to bat at the little thing, stopping just short before pausing and thinking better of it. "These things are pack animals, look at the way they instantly start to huddle together. If they're following a pack hierarchy, they'll have an alpha somewhere. The others will follow it. Look for the patterns in their movements, pick it out... but don't kill it. We need to convince it to retreat, the others will follow." Kill the leader and the others would just become even more uncoordinated and feral. "First priority is to try and move this as far away from all the villages. Push them back... and then I don't know, regroup from there." He spoke both to Shule, and through Cyshe, the little water-spirit repeating his words in a little sing-song lilt, but a frown on her face.

"They're just hungry and confused, y'know," the spirit said to Faith with a concerned little bobble. "I know it sounds silly, but we owe it to them to not cause more pain than we need to." He almost seemed to focus his words more towards Shule than her.

For all the rush he felt at the chance to deal a killer blow and earn a little reputation for himself as more than just Xithyria's failure, he agreed with that sentiment somewhat. Besides. If they caused trouble, he'd just come back and deal with them again; this time with a better approach. And a pad to take some notes on their behaviour. Once more he turned to Shule. "Okay, how about this. Set up a defensive line and fire warning blasts on a sweep perpendicular to the Thundermaws; push them back and away from the village first, then we can chase them further out once they've grouped together and push them towards the Stormwastes. They'll get the message soon enough... and once they're clear of harming any more civilians, our job here is done and the rest of the patrols can deal with escorting them back to the Stormwastes."

[Faith Augustin]

"I'd believe that the plan consisted of two words!" Faith shot back in a rare showing of sassy. She grinned, though, not wanting him to feel bad. At the end of the trial they were both here just doing their best and Faith knew better than anyone that Nir'wei hadn't asked for things to turn out this way. If she got hold of the people responsible - and that included the two women who'd both just run off - then they would be getting a very stern talking-to from her. But if there was one person who's fault this was not - it was Nir'wei. So, she bit back any further sass and listened carefully to what his diri said. Faith was not a 'wilderness type' in any way. She didn't do well in the wilds, neither her nor Padraig and that, coupled with her genuinely abysmal sense of direction, and Faith knew that Nir'wei was far, far better equipped to direct what they were doing here.

Moving this situation as far away as they could made sense, although Faith struggled to really see that killing the leader would make a difference. Unless, she supposed, she was looking at things through the eyes of a human, not an animal, so again she deferred to Nir'wei. His skill with animals was something she greatly admired about her friend and so, Faith simply nodded her head and accepted it as factual that he was right. And, true enough, Nir'wei's suggestion came to her via Schule and Faith nodded. "I'm on board," she said, and the little diri in front of Nir'wei told him so.

And that was what they did. Together. A defensive line which they pushed forward, and they began to almost herd the creatures. Faith was more than a little sceptical but, in fairness, it worked. They were able to fire warning blasts, and that set the creatures moving. Faith was amazed to realise that there was one who was a leader - like the alpha in a pack, she supposed - and once they had identified that one, it was much easier to enforce their will on the creatures from that point onwards. By making the leader go in the direction they wanted, the pack followed. Faith, it must be said, followed Nir'wei's lead in much the same way as the creatures followed their leader. "It's working!" she said, delightedly.

Because he was right - they had to get this sorted the best they could, so that more of their number could come. Anything else was, simply, suicide. And neither of them felt like that today.