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Post by Iris on Oct 10, 2016 4:33:30 GMT
 It had been nearly half a year since Aria and her tribe departed from their old forest home; the cozy space nestled among small mountains and their towering trees, their spring bringing bounty and eventually heartache. Aria and her people knew not of what became of Nmeosh's fate after they left him, abandoned for his crimes and endangerment of the tribe, but his empty space could still be felt; the palpable presence of absence. Yet despite their heartache, the tribe willfully followed Aria as they moved downwards from their home, their trek spanning for miles and miles, days and days, months and months. It seemed that no place they found could capture the same feeling their old home had given them, no place was as welcoming and kind. There were troubles around every turn; rocky terrain causing grief, lack of prey causing hungry stomachs, the threat of nearby people posing problematic situations...Aria hated forcing her tribe to move more and more, she could see the wear it had on their very souls, but she assured them that so long as she was Chief, she would find them somewhere they could rest and live peacefully once more. They finally seemed to have a break further down the depths of America. The woods were much sparser, but they still laid somewhat untouched and intact. The game was smaller, but plentiful and the waters were just as cool. However, it seemed that even here, there was trouble brewing and Aria, yet again, was faced with a threat posed to her people...
"Chief!" Aria looked up from where she was bandaging her leg. There had been a particularly sharp patch of bramble that cut into the tough flesh; it wasn't hurting, nor was it deep, but she didn't exactly want it exposed. Grunting slightly, she tied the worn fabric tight and crossed her legs, setting her hands on her knees. "What is it?", she called past the furs that separated her tent from the outside. The voice of her tribe member, a young one named Terrok, shakily replied back to her. "There's...there's something in the forest." A little broad of a statement, but he was a young pup, so she had to show patience here. With a soft sigh, she stood up, the clacking of the beads and stones in her mass of hair sounding out due to it being unbraided for once. She crossed the doorway and pulled away the furs separating them and she knelt down, her form powerful and hulking over the small one who looked away immediately out of instinctual training. "What do you mean "Something" and where exactly do you mean?" Her voice was hoarse, but her tone was kind and she waited quietly as the small boy tried his hardest to explain. "A...a little past the river. I was playing with Ubol and we...we heard a noise. It sounded a lot like when a tree falls, but it kept happening...like the trees were constantly breaking. Ubol said we should go see it, but I told him we shouldn't! It's not safe!", Terrok was obviously trying to defend himself here and all Aria could do was withhold a sigh. Sometimes children were just too hard to communicate with...but Terrok was clearly scared, so she couldn't simply dismiss something that made her people feel unsafe. "So, I am assuming you went to see what it was. Is it big, another bear?" Her arms tensed briefly and for just a moment, her pupils dilated; the promise of a thrilling hunt and a new pelt was something she could always appreciate. However, Terrok simply shook his head. "N-no...it...It was a tree." Aria narrowed her eyes slightly, responding back quickly. "Yes, you mentioned the sound being a tree-" Terrok cut her off however, something that usually was never advisable to do to the tribe leader. "No! It WAS a tree! IT was moving and...and it was almost like it was alive! I told Ubol we should run and tell you about it...but...He didn't! Chief, whatever that tree was, it reached out and grabbed Ubol!" Now she was listening. Something grabbed one of her tribe and seeing how Terrok was here alone..."Ubol is not with you. I assume he is still out there?" Terrok, teary eyed now, simply nodded his head frantically. "Yes!! The vines from the tree...it was like they were alive, they wrapped him up tight and tight and...I ran, I ran to come tell you immediately!!" Aria's large hand placed itself over the young boy's head, between the large, fuzzy ears atop his hair and she stood up slowly. Terrok suddenly froze still at the sheer feeling of strength coming from his leader, her presence larger than ever as she seemed to bulk up slightly. Her eyes were feral and her face, despite its stony appearance, exuded a dark sense of fury that he couldn't even begin to comprehend. "I see. Numek!" Aria barked the order and from her tent a wizened old woman appeared, humming in question as to why Aria was being so rambunctious. "Gather the tribe. I want you to move onwards from here, keep going south for a while." Numek's wrinkled face seemed to sag with exhaustion at the thought of moving forward and she opened her mouth to question Aria, but the large woman simply brought her hand into her palm, cracking her scared knuckles slightly while gently moving her head from side to side, the loud pop of joints being heard while she exhaled slowly. "Don't question me, Numek. Do what I say; I'll catch up with you after this. I promise we'll stop having to move after this."
Aria was running fast through the forest, a lifetime's worth of mastery making her large feet silent as she plundered through overgrowth. Numek had silently taken Aria's order, leaving her with her furs and her spear, then taking the dissapointed tribe with her. Aria felt heat boil in her chest as she looked at their tired faces; just when she thought she'd gotten them into safety, something had to happen again. Why did the Gods have to wish so much hardship on them?
She leapt easily over the riverbed that Terrok had mentioned and paused only to sniff the air. Catching trace's of Ubol's scent, being the only other scent here that smelled similar to the rest of her tribe, Aria narrowed down and ran her hands across the earth. To think he was just here a few hours ago, playing with his friend, minding their own business...Aria's large shoulders tensed up with the rest of her body while she pressed her hand harder into the dirt, nails clipping into it briefly. She wouldn't stand by and let this keep happening, she'd get that pup back and utterly destroy whatever it was causing this mess! Hunkering down, Aria followed Ubol's scent deep into undergrowth past the riverbed; the boys had definitely traveled further than she'd anticipated...but the scent was still here. She could see the small indentations of his tiny feet in the dirt beneath open patches of foliage; the sight of toes giving way to paw prints, then back into toes once more allowing her to assure that it was indeed her kind. Aria quickly hit a snag once she found the trail ended...and it didn't just simply end in the middle of nowhere. Ubol's trail led her to a strange area where the trees gave way to an odd set of ruins.
Aria stood a top a block in frustration, sniffing at the air, tasting it even against her tongue. His scent just abruptly stopped here!! Trying hard to attempt and figure out what was happening, Aria didn't even take time to notice the strangely colored flowers that swayed in a wind that didn't exist, or the crawling lines of vines that hungrily snaked against the ground...until they clipped their way up along the block Aria stood on, their thick vegetation latching around her legs and immediately setting her into fight mode.
Anyone entering the area would see a massive woman, tearing, clawing, biting, slashing away at a hoard of vines that advanced with the intention of making her disappear just like whatever made Ubol disappear. |
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 11, 2016 0:34:56 GMT
Gianni stumbled through the woods, paying attention to everything but the ground. The last time he had been in the woods was five years ago and an ocean away. He wasn't exactly made for traversing them. He hadn't even chosen his outfit well. His purple shorts left plenty of leg to get slashed up by thorny bushes. He ignored the pain and pushed on. He only had one day off to use, and he was going to use it! A few close calls with oddly aggressive plant life later and he came across what he was looking for. "It's... perfect." Exactly like he had dreamed of, the ruins rose as a stone wall with a small door at the top, far above where humans could normally reach.
The entire stone was marked with strange symbols, an alphabet Gianni only grasped the most vague of details from. Gianni could stay studying these details his whole life, but there wasn't time. He'd have to map out its insides today and come back later. Peering through the oddly saturated world, he noticed a woman already standing on a stone that fell from the monument. He cautiously approached, noting her odd fashion and great size. "Uh... hello, I am Gianni Arachne. I'm here to investigate this ruin. I'm sorry, is it important to you?" He wasn't American, but he thought Native Americans only still wore this sort of garb ceremonial. He hoped this home of his people didn't also happen to be a sacred place to the local tribes. That would be a problem for everybody involved.
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Post by Iris on Oct 11, 2016 1:43:36 GMT
Aria's head snapped to the side at the approaching form rustling through the greenery. In her mouth was thick vine that had earlier acted as a tentacle, almost as if it had its own will when it'd tried to wrap around her arm; tried being the key word. Spitting the plant matter onto the ground, long lines of her thick saliva following along with the strange, light green substance that leaked from the plant, Aria twirled her spear once and it was the first thing to interrupt the babble from Gianni's mouth.
The crude tip made a point to bring itself as close as possible to his throat and disgust couldn't begin to describe alone the look she had on her face. Clearly, she couldn't understand what he was saying, but he didn't seem hostile...just...noisy. Aria didn't have time to deal with some loud little man, she had to find Ubol. Taking the tip of her spear, Aria impaled it into the earth beneath and let out an inhuman growl, her gold eyes narrowed with ferocity; maybe she could just scare the guy away and not have to deal with him at all. As if to further show that she could crack him in half like a twig, Aria felt the sudden yank on her arm as the rather feisty plant life tried to get a hold of her once more, and she simply felt all of her primed muscle tense up, curling her arm and pulling at the plant until it literally snapped at its root, leaving her free while she shook the gross foliage to the ground before glaring back to Gianni. She didn't want to speak an ounce of their foul language to tell him to go.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 11, 2016 23:02:51 GMT
Gianni broke out in a cold sweat when Aria put her spear to his neck. Okay, this wasn't normal. That he was sure of. Gianni was stock still, hands up at his chest. He was even less comfortable raising his arms in this vibrant orange tank top. If his odd purple complexion wasn't a tip enough he wasn't normal, the bizarrely bristly nature of his body hair would certainly serve.
He backed away from Aria as soon as her spear was away from his neck. That was certainly not a message he needed words to understand. He observed Aria, noting that the entrance would possibly be reachable if she climbed a tree or if she could jump with surprising strength, but she couldn't get in without him. Was that what she wanted? "If you're trying to get in there... I can open the door." Did she even understand him? Would she listen if she could?
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Post by Iris on Oct 12, 2016 1:48:34 GMT
She didn't care for the garbled, disgusting language this thing spoke to her. It wasn't entirely human, she'd seen plenty of skin tones and that purple nature of his wasn't something she had seen before, but that didn't make her like him anymore. Aria couldn't understand a smidgen of what he was trying to offer her, but just having to hear him speak the human tongue while presenting himself here at the source of Ubol's disappearance was making her feel particularly heated and her skin slightly itchy; her tribe was such a touchy subject for her, she could already feel the beast inside wanting to come out and tear the ruins apart...Aria was temperamental, but she wasn't stupid. Destroying this place wouldn't bring Ubol back any sooner...
Snarling angrily, Aria kicked away the broken section of ruin she'd be standing on. She had shown up here by accident, but this purple man had shown up on on what seemed like purpose. Nobody wore such stupid, non-covering clothes into a situation they weren't prepared for. Which meant that her best chance of getting in and finding Ubol would be only through his help IF he knew what he was doing. Aria began to speak loudly in her gruff tone, using specifically her language as she swayed her spear from side to side, directing it at him and then to the ruins several times over. She'd be damned if she let her stupid pride get in the way of saving her tribe.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 12, 2016 2:36:22 GMT
Gianni edged carefully towards the ruins when Aria seemed to indicate he could. When she didn't stab him, he made a scramble the rest of the way to the sheer wall. Obviously this woman had mood swings, and he wanted in before she changed her mind again. He only stopped to feel the stone and sighed. Felt just like the stone of the old basement. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural. Or his ancestors had carted thousands of tons of this preferred white stone thousands of miles. He didn't know enough of them to rule that out.
He dropped his hand and put a sneakered foot on the stone. It clung like he was walking on a flat surface as he lifted his other foot and put it as well on the wall. He walked up to the high symbol at the top of the wall. Now to test the statement he most hoped was true when he read it in the old book of fables from the attic. "The walls will open to one of the blood." He mumbled to himself and knelt. He looked at the strange picture, depicting something very complex with very simple artistic techniques. It seemed to be a face, a huge black symbol with a single blue eye and purple fangs at the bottom. Was that what he actually looked like under his human guise?
He shook his head and pressed his palm to the very center. Immediately a seam appeared through the center of the image and it began to open with a deep rumble. The very ground beneath it shook. The sides slowly slid apart like the weight of ages slowed them down and perhaps it did. Gianni didn't know the mechanics by which it opened, but they were from 3,000 to 300 years old by now. Gianni stepped up and stood on the ledge, looking down into the darkness. As he studied this first descending hallway, purple eye shaped symbols on the walls lit up to provide him with an image of the slope. He hesitated and looked back down at Aria. Was she going to follow him now?
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Post by Iris on Oct 12, 2016 14:10:15 GMT
This place made her angry and on edge. Every inch of her instincts was warning her about this place, causing her hair to stand on end and her pupils to dilate as she inhaled again and again, trying to keep the scent of Ubol fresh in her senses. All she had to do was get him back, what this weird, wall-walking man did after was none of her concern...she'd simply scare him off later if he was too close to her tribe later.
Visibly sniffing, Aria slowly rotated her shoulders in small circles, popping her neck from side to side as she loosened up her body. Ubol's scent was stronger down in the dank, dark depths of whatever these ruins are and that meant she had no choice but to go in. Her clawed and calloused feet touched along dusty stone of the entrance that led into a darkness that only went down; even with her heightened sense of sight, and partial night-vision, it was still impossibly difficult to see. Looking upwards, Aria let out a gruff snarl and gestured with a jerk of her head, seeming more like an order than a polite request. She was giving him the right to go considering he seemed like he knew what he was doing here...
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 12, 2016 19:23:14 GMT
Gianni gladly went when Aria seemed to signal he should. Being near her seemed a dangerous proposition. As they walked, more eyes lit up on the walls, later ones having only a slightly purple tint. The lights were strangely dim, leaving much of the common room they entered in shadow. Perhaps his kind had better night vision than humans? Or they just relied more on touch to navigate. With what they could see of this entry room, it was largely barren and empty. There were slightly decayed cushions on the floor, like you would have for a dog. The sealed ruin must have defended them from further deterioration.
Gianni knelt and wrapped a few in preservative plastic wrap from his backpack. He didn't want them to crumble before he could properly study them. He then scanned the walls again, seeing two paths away from where they stood. Next to one was a series of lines and squares with symbols besides. "That's a map!" He jogged over and stared at it, undoubtedly wasting time again from Aria's perspective. There were vines growing across the map, he noted with confusion. How could anything be growing in here? They looked alive too. But not... early. The small leaves growing from them were pitch black and they were strangely bendy when he handled them. Was this normal? He didn't know.
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Post by Iris on Oct 14, 2016 12:05:24 GMT
Aria didn't like this place in the slightest. Even with her enhanced vision adjusted in the dark, it seemed impossible to see clearly; the only way she could have possibly seen any better was to transform and that was pointless...especially in such a tight place. Silent and watching, Aria sniffed around the air, searching for the traces of Ubol's scent that was growing strangely harder to find beneath the weird musk this place was producing. Her footwork was silent as she padded across the floor, looking with a deadly sort of irritation as Gianni seemed to halt her process; she didn't have time to follow behind this little annoying man who was taking his sweet time. She had things ACTUALLY at risk here.
Giving a gruff grunt, Aria sniffed at the air of the two paths and decided she'd take the path she chose that smelled most like her tribe member, which seemed to be the right one. How on earth had Ubol gotten all the way in here..how did those vines drag him all the way down? Her eyes narrowed at the thought of the small pup undoubtedly being terrified and alone in these dark, dark hallways, his senses assaulted and peaked with fear. Aria HAD to find him! With her arm holding her spear steadfast and ready at her side, Aria passed immediately by Gianni, not caring if she abandoned him or not.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 21, 2016 5:53:50 GMT
Gianni kept staring at the supposed map, carefully taking it down on a notepad. "Okay, I'm good." He stood up and looked around the empty room. "Uh... miss?" Well, he knew which path she must have taken from the map. One was a tiny offshoot that lead nowhere. Gianni ventured carefully into the other path.
Aria wasn't far down the path. It seemed rather short, as she was already coming up on the end. This place seemed much smaller than the complexity of the map suggested. She was on the verge of an open room with little cubbies all over the walls, most still with the padded bedding found in the main room laying in them. As Gianni followed behind, he noted how all the walls melded with the floor and ceiling with no sharp edges. He supposed it must be for his species and their ability to walk up walls with no resistance.
In the room, Aria may well be wondering where the lost pup was given it looked like a dead end when an opening revealed itself in the form of a hold in the ceiling when three odd figures dropped through. Three ruddy tumbleweeds with red thorns fell through, bouncing softly on the ground and rolling violet lights in their insides. The lights were darker in the center, giving the appearance of eyes, and they hovered around in their woody cages as if studying Aria, three in one cage, four in the other. With a crazed beeping, both tumbleweeds rolled at Aria and attempted to trap her limbs in their cages with uncertain intent.
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Post by Iris on Oct 24, 2016 7:29:41 GMT
Aria snarled as the foreign objects began an attempt to entangle her. Beneath her large, bear-skin covering, Aria’s arms appeared and began to tear at the thorny cages. Their sharp pricks managed to pierce her tougher skin, not as thoroughly as they could have, but enough to send a deep, shaking, irritation-fueled anger through her. These stupid piles of plant-life had the audacity to try and attack her after taking her kin?!
Aria’s deep voice was laden with a growling undertone, her foreign language thick as she snarled and attacked wildly at the plant life. Her claws slashed until entangled again , her powerful limbs pulling them back out to continue attacking before finding themselves somehow trapped once again, all the while she hurled her vicious threats to the open ears of all who may not understand her. Through the entire progress, Aria could feel herself beginning to lose hold on her cool and in the process, she felt her hair growing denser, thicker, and her teeth weren’t beginning to sit comfortably in her mouth any longer.
With a wilder, more bestial look to her furious golden gaze, Aria lifted her mouth to the nearest thorny tumbleweed and bit into it, tearing back with a snarl that was as far from human as it could possibly be. She didn't know what these things wanted, but she’d tear them to shreds if they thought for even a second she’d let them get her.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 24, 2016 21:21:07 GMT
Gianni ran in on Aria shredding the tumbleweeds. Their woody stems stretched and snapped as she pulled them apart with raw strength far beyond their elasticity. The glowing orbs that freely swirled in their innards bounced off the ground, beeping with higher frequency and making an oddly glassy clack as they bounced and rolled. The shredded plant matter flew from Aria's arms and began to clad them again. Before one finished, Gianni flicked out a string and yanked an orb away from the others.
It beeped at him until he spiked it into the ground. It didn't just shatter but explode, a small violet cloud of force. Gianni hopped away but felt nothing from the blast. He tore himself away from searching from fragments to catch the remaining orbs all forming a massive shared tumbleweed. With an overwhelming chorus of beeping, the ball, taller than Aria, lashed out individual strands to pull Aria into a mass of thorns.
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Post by Iris on Oct 26, 2016 20:37:54 GMT
The small punctures and scratches she was gathering were beginning to add up; what started as a small sting here or there was beginning to resound across her entire body. Aria's patience was wearing horrifically thin, she didn't have time to waste fighting with these bizarre plants!! Whatever they were, no amount of shredding she was giving them was being enough and even with Gianni's assistance, the destroyed mass seemed to coagulate into one and she was finding more than just her arms and legs pricked and torn.
Aria had had it!! She had no time to fight these things slowly and even less time to get captured. With a howl of ferocity, the sound began to ricochet painfully off the walls while the large, bearskin covering she wore snapped at the neck, following the sudden mass she gained. Human so quickly and easily gave to wolf, the thrill of a hunt and the desire to take back what was hers overrode her cool composure prior to this room. Instead, what was in the chamber with Gianni was a wolf larger than any normal one, its back pressing into the ceiling and its thick, animal musk filling the air, accompanied by a snarl of savagery when it quit pulling away from the bramble mass and instead leaped forward onto it.
Her coat was thicker than her skin could ever have been, similar to her teeth and claws. Massive paws crushed and scratched into the writhing, pointy mass all while her jaws continued to unforgivingly sank into the ball again and again, tearing in bigger masses than it had before, outright crushing the plant matter with their force, flecking saliva mixed with small bits of her own blood out in every direction; a frenzy of unbridled destruction.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 26, 2016 22:07:30 GMT
Thick fur entangled thorny branches and the plant creature couldn't retreat as its defenses were chewed away. The balls could only beep and rattle around, bouncing off of Aria's snout as she shredded more and more of their cage. Before they could close the gap, strings flicked out and nabbed them out one by one, slamming them into the walls and floors in a strange dance of threads.
More and more of the vines went limp the more orbs died. When the last was yanked free, the entire structure collapsed in a heap of vines entangling Aria. Gianni distracted himself from his confusion at Aria's change by working on containing the frantic orb. He wrestled it into his bag before sealing it up and staring at his transformed companion. Should he speak? Was she safe? He wanted to back away, but hated the thought of attracting her attention with noise. He guessed she would try to leap up through the hole on the ceiling and wondered if she could make that leap or if she'd need his help.
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Post by Iris on Oct 27, 2016 14:24:31 GMT
The limp vines were no match for the raging beast that viciously threw its body back and forward, long claw marks forming in the once solid stone where it stood. Human feeling, human desire, it was all abandoned to make way for the feelings of a beast and Aria had never felt as comfortable. With a breath like a reoccurring heatwave pouring from Aria's massive maw, her eyes looked ghostly in bright in the bare light reflecting from above and she locked them onto Gianni's considerably smaller form. As if warning him not to make a move, she let out a low, guttural growl and gave her body a massive shake to flick off the remaining tendrils. Her long tail dragged across the ground, her thick paws making heavy, loud thumps as she shifted around in the claustrophobic space, bringing her hyper sensitive snout to the ground.
In his nearness to Aria in this state, he'd soon find her to be pouring off a growing, thick heat that only began to ebb away when she seemed to find the source of the scent she was looking for; the hole the creatures had come out of earlier. Aria dearly didn't want to shift... but the longer she was like this, the less cognitive capability she'd have. She could always shift when she got home and take a hunt to blow off some steam...so for now, Aria's body hunched forward and in a series of strange stretches and pops, where a wolf once stood was the same broad, solid girl from before. Aria cracked her neck from side to side, grunting slightly at the pain in her mouth as they readjusted around her smaller teeth. Slowly, she stood from her crouched position, nothing but coarse hair, old scars, flecks of dark red paint and bare skin; Aria always imagined this was how a child felt. Small, vulnerable... Aria felt nostalgic for her beast side in the faint few seconds of vulnerability the transformation back gave. Her recovery was swift however and she looked to Gianni, her eyes still golden and glaring, holding the hint of feral savagery before looking away and searching the dark for her coat; unfortunately the bindings had broke again, so she simply threw it over her shoulder and pointed up to the hole with a gruff grunt, signaling that they needed to get up there.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 28, 2016 4:53:46 GMT
Red slowly crept into Gianni's face. There wasn't a stitch of clothing on Amai and nothing hiding her body. He resisted staring to the best of his ability and shuffled up the wall. He knew what she wanted, it was just awkward to do anything with her looking like that. He quickly stuck his shirt to his shorts with sticky strings so it wouldn't flop over his head and hopped onto the ceiling. He cautiously looked through the hole, but could see only faint shapes.
It looked like the light wasn't on yet. It would probably wait for him to enter to light up. He internally debated just how to get her up here. His threads couldn't unstick easily and that wouldn't be fun for either of them. It occurred to him there was a solution, but he didn't like it. He waved down at her and mimed a tearing and then trying motion, then pointed at her ruined cloak. Tied together, strips from that should hold her weight and make the distance.
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Post by Iris on Oct 28, 2016 15:35:48 GMT
Aria looked from Gianni's gesturing towards her pelt, a fang baring at the very thought of destroying it anymore than she had; she'd worked hard for that trophy, bears didn't exactly go down easy. Yet she complied, thinking of how there were plenty of bears to hunt and not exactly the same could be said for her dwindling kind. With minimum effort, Aria's strength couldn't exactly go unnoticed as she tore the thick pelt into smaller straps and, following Gianni's gestures from earlier, she tied the fuzzy bits together into a very hastily made rope. With a side to side shift of her head, cracking her neck just briefly as she continued to adjust back into her human form, Aria looked up to Gianni and grunted to gather his attention before tossing up the rope. Her patience dwindled thinner and thinner as she waited for the spindly man to secure it to something, though she wasn't entirely sure what and wasn't about to attempt to ask.
Before taking action, Aria sniffed around for the familiar scent of her spear, touching along the ground and pushing away leftover bramble as she located her cherished weapon she'd abandoned in the fight. Afterwards, Aria easily climbed her way up, kneeling at the edge of the hole while she sniffed in the dark, dank area. She couldn't really get a good grasp of what was in here...but all she gathered was the same smell she'd been trailing since she'd arrived at the ruins, besides the growing smell of Gianni's perspiration, raw plant matter and the faintest traces of Ubol. Gathering up the rope of torn fur, Aria wrapped it haphazardly around her neck and stood, with just a brief wince as she became aware of how annoying the constant stings left from the brambles she'd fought were.
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Post by HungryHunter on Oct 28, 2016 21:11:13 GMT
Gianni blushed hideously when Aria was close, looking more purple than usual. He distracted himself by instead focusing the many shallow lacerations all over her body. He knelt and opened his backpack, bringing out a brown bottle. "It's antiseptic. Those wounds are filthy." He offered her the bottle and some bandages, carefully averting his gaze. Luckily, there was much in here that drew his attention. The walls had a collection of premodern weapons, all bladed portions made from the same stone as the walls. Gianni noted with worry that several were missing. Did they die in an attack? Was that why this complex was abandoned? He paused to study what was still on the walls. Were these for attack or just for defending their home? By the fact most of the weapons were spears and there were bright white shields still marked with vibrant designs on the walls besides them.
He pulled a shield off the wall and stood examining it. Undoubtedly Aria would venture forth down the hallway while he was distracted. She would find two odd warriors, holding matching shields side to side to block off the hallway. Their torsos were like pea pods, glowing from the purple orbs held within. The rest was like a plant shaped into a caterpillar mixed with a seal, a long body with wiggling roots writhing against the ground. The pod body came up from the front like a centaur, spears held forth as well by long, tangled vines coming off their upper bodies in droves. Both moved forward with an awkward flop, stabbing at Aria with their long spears.
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Post by Iris on Nov 1, 2016 14:31:32 GMT
Aria didn't understand a word Gianni said, her basic understanding of any language outside of her own was at a horrendous bare minimum thanks to the way she isolated herself from society. So Aria only looked at the bottle with a guarded expression, the look giving way to the faintest hint of understanding when he produced bandages; those, Aria knew well. Her traders were the only ones with a semi-decent hold on the goods and languages, as well as the interactions with outsiders and she only got to see the results when they brought things back.
Having taken whatever the strange container was, Aria worked at the bottle, opening the top that she figured was supposed to come off anyways and sniffed at the noxious concoction inside, immediately holding back a cough as she recoiled, a look of disgust on her face. While Gianni thankfully took his time away from her, Aria tried to gauge what was in the bottle more accurately. After having smelled, she tasted, found it to be equally as disgusting...and then the initial sting of the liquid on her scratched finger made her snarl loudly. What was this stupid, bad smelling, bad tasting, painful liquid?! Was he trying to injure her more?? No, no, you didn't just give someone bandages with something that also hurt them...and this scrawny guy wouldn't fair well if he boldly was trying to harm her, of all people. So the intentions of the alcohol could only be good...even if she didn't understand it. She still wasn't going to use it, not until she had a better grasp of it. However, the bandages, she thankfully used.
Aria spent the next few moments taking the brown bottle and tying it between the straps of fur she still held on to after having used them for a rope earlier, figuring that she could find some use for it later...or at least ask her tribe if they'd ever seen or used something like it.
Leaving Gianni to his devices, Aria did indeed venture off in the strange room, sniffing intently along the walls with her spear poised and ready in her hand. However, what she met wasn't exactly what she'd desired. The strange creature's with their familiar glowing, purple insides brought a refreshing new wave of anger at the recognition; the small cuts and stinging pricks left in her skin an all too fresh reminder. "Using a weapon like that against me...you're initiating a challenge that you will NOT win." Speaking to them, despite whether they could understand her or not, Aria took her stance, slightly bent and lowered to the ground while holding tightly to the solid base of her spear while they approached her.
When Gianni would undoubtedly hear the clash of weaponry in the otherwise deadly silent lair, if he sought out the source, he'd find Aria deflecting the awkward positioning of the creature's stabs, clanging metal tips to metal rods and slashing back with her body moving fluidly, using the small turns and twists she gave in between every block to make stabs inwards, aiming for those despicable, annoying purple orbs in their bodies . The unfair advantage here were their shields...she could never get clean shots in like this.
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Post by HungryHunter on Nov 2, 2016 0:00:09 GMT
Aria was more skilled than the creatures, and her fast movements and fearsome attacks kept her safe and cost the beasts some chips on their all important orbs. However, their shields were effective in defending them, especially side by side in this small corridor. Aria's spear hopelessly clanged off the stony surfaces, not doing so much harm as a scratch on their paint jobs. The sentinels stayed still, clearly understanding the advantage of their vantage point.
They began to swing their shields to bat her spear down, seeking to pin its thin shaft to the ground and shatter it. Gianni picked up on the noises at last, glancing around the corner to see the battle in progress. He spun and glanced around the room at all the holsters. After a moment, he grabbed an axe with a lengthened lower portion of its blade, a bearded axe in other words. He ran into the hallway, dodging a spear thrust by jumping onto the wall but eating a shield bash and ending up rolling back to Aria's feet. "Here." He handed the axe up to her. He mimed pulling the shield down with the edge of the axe and stabbing with his other arm. He hoped she understood. Shields didn't seem to be part of her usual armory.
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