Post by Chains on Aug 5, 2009 4:53:25 GMT -5
This is going to make no sense whatsoever to those new to this thing, but I figured a bit of nonsensical action beats out some equally nonsensical conversation. All you really need to know is that our hero is being threatened by a gang of several rather nasty creatures called Re-imagined- at least until his 'sidekick' shows up to straighten things out. (Although poor Kvetch is never going to forgive me for calling him that.)
Kvetch found Kennit propped up against the rusting innards of some scrap metal machine, his hat on the ground beside him, and the loaded Dreadnought in his lap. He had his left hand clapped weakly to his right side, but the blood just spilled through his fingers and was soaked up by the thirsty ground.
He wasn't alone.
Kvetch ghosted closer, tasting decay on the air. The scrapyard offered the Vetshi hundreds of places to take cover and he moved nearer between towering gears, chrome frameworks, shrines made of twisted miles of wire... He left his staff by a rather distinct metal skeleton and proceeded on without it. His shuffling totter was gone, replaced by a predatory lope and he leaned into it, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two. As he ran, he dialated his pupils and the night lightened perceptibly before him.
Something laughed up ahead. "Oh my," it chuckled. "Did something hurt you? Hmm? Did something rip you up a little? Oh my."
Kennit said something too soft for Kvetch to hear in response. It was recieved by a howling shriek of mirth. A different voice, this one distinctly female, replied, "Now why would you do that? We are such pretty people. How could you threaten such pretty people?"
"They held up a mirror," a third voice added. "They held up a mirror and said I was such a perfect boy."
Kvetch flitted to the top of a jagged hill of disembowled machinery. He flattened himself down when he reached the crest and lay there, assessing the scene.
The three Re-imagined had ringed Kennit in a semi-circle. For the moment, the sight of the nocked Dreadnought was keeping them at a respectful distance, but they were circling closer with every passing second. They hadn't yet realized what an empty threat the crossbow was, but they soon would. Even if the Dreadnought had been a regular weapon, Kennit looked like he barely had the strength to hold it steady. It wouldn't take long for the Re-imagined to work up the nerve for a full out charge. They knew how hard they were to kill.
Kvetch tried to pinpoint their leader but they seemed to treat each other as three seperate entities. It was most likely only chance that these particular individuals had scented or seen the injured human. They would probably tear each other to shreds later over the corpse, but at the moment they were working in un-coordinated tandem to ensure that there would be a corpse to fight over.
The biggst threat with Re-imagined came from the largest individuals. The more flesh they encased their true bodies in, the harder they were to kill. Two of the gathered were fairly scrawny, but the first speaker was immensely tall and wrapped in layers of tattered finery. He was also the most intact and the only one that went armed. The way he carried the meat hook on its length of chain suggested he had strength to burn. Kvetch zeroed in on him as the most dangerous and gently eased the arrag loose in their sheaths. He waited for them to close their circle a bit more, so their backs would be completely turned to him.
"Me?" the first one was saying. "I just want your left arm. Mine is a bit broken, oh my, yes. Be a gentleman and oblidge a fellow, won't you?"
"Such a perfect boy," the other muttered, shambling closer. Kvetch thought him a Ganta originally but there was no way to be sure of that.
The female of the group was the smallest. The only part that remained of her Imagination, was a carefully preserved woman's face, grafted onto the body of something insectile and scuttling. Scraps of her previous body hung from her dull chitin like remnants of a bad molt. She darted back and forth on needle-like legs, maintaining how beautiful she was in her shrieking laugh of a voice.
Kennit bled his life away and watched them come. There was a mixture of resignation, disgust, and agony in his face.
Emboldened by his lack of response, the Re-imagined advanced with renewed hunger. It was the opportunity Kvetch had been waiting for.
The Vetshi launched himself down the scrap heap, moving noiselessly for all his speed. Robes billowing, eyes blazing, he waited until his descent took him close enough to the ground, and then he leapt straight down into the mud and the muck. He landed soundlessly on all fours, rolled once, and shot up into the attack with the arrag in his hands.
His first pass hamstrung the largest of the Re-imagined.
The arrag flashed, and the Re-imagined went down to his knees. His stolen legs ripped themselves apart down the dreadful wounds when he tried to move. Kvetch shot right, circling around his disabled enemy to engage the second most intact of the group. The-thing-that-could-have-been-a-Ganta, saw him coming and reached for him with bloated hands. Kvetch ducked inside its grasp. He sammed the poisoned arrag up as far as he could, just under the thing's sternum. The Re-imagined screamed in pain and tried to crush him against its chest in a death grip, but Kvetch whirled, wrenching the arrag free, and darted away. The Re-imagined's arms closed on nothing.
The thing with the woman's face came flying up out of the darkness. Kvetch flipped the second arrag around in hand, checked his forward motion, and let fly. The blade shot out, splitting the air. It took the Re-imagined right in her howling mouth. Her scream cut off abruptly as the weapon punched through the back of her throat and she collapsed in a heap, retching blood.
"Kvetch!"
Kennit's voice yanked the Vetshi around just in time to duck under the shrieking meat hook as it swung at his head with crippling force. If Kennit hadn't alerted him to it, that blow would have crushed his skull into so much pulp.
The first Re-imagined advanced on the Vetshi, swinging the hook in a tight, dangerous circle. He had prised open his ruined human legs, splitting them apart down the wounds with his hook, to let his true limbs free. Now, he stalked forward on arched paws and the remnants of his human limbs hung down from his knees in bloody shreds.
Kvetch smiled at his enemy from the depths of his hood, but there was only cold fury in the grin. "And they call me a traitor?" he spat. "At leadt I have the decency not to hide in a dead mand dkin."
"Oh my. Look at you," the Re-imagined crowed. "I think I will keep you when I'm finished here. I always wanted to look inside our kind and find out what disfigures us so. Perhaps I can make you glorious, as I am glorious."
"The only thing glorioud about you will be your death. Let the poidon of your ancedtord judge you, you corpde fucking badtard."
"That tongue of yours has to go, oh my, yes. Let's take care of that first."
The Re-imagined cast the hook with brutally sudden accuracy. Kvetch threw himself to the ground to avoid the vicious piece of metal, then turned his fall into a controlled roll. The Re-imagined snapped the chain back, shooting the hook into his open palm. Without apparent effort, he yanked the hook free and tossed it aside. Kvetch barely managed to avoid the following blow of the now un-impeded chain as his enemy layed into the ground with terrible power. The chain tore the earth to pieces, sending chunks of dirt and shrapnel into the air. Kvetch rolled again and again, somehow always just ahead of the lashing metal tongue.
Siezing on frantic inspiration, he gathered himself up onto his haunches and dove behind the body of the second Re-imagined where it lay convulsing in the final stages of arrag poisoning. The chain licked out after him. Slammed into the prostrate Re-imagined, and splattered him like an over-ripe melon. The links snagged briefly on the wire mesh and stapling that remained buried deep within the corpse, and Kvetch exploded forward in that miniscule half second window, that single opportunity in time. But for all his speed and all his reflexes, he knew he was never going to be fast enough.
Already the Re-imagined had tugged the chain free. The end of it grazed the Vetshi's shoulder on the backswing and now he was raising it above his head, raising it like a terrible steel bullwhip, raising it, and raising it-- and Kennit came out of nowhere to tackle the Re-imagined in a flurry of blood.
Their enemy was large enough and Kennit's charge weak enough that neither of them hit the ground, but the Re-imagined stumbled and lost his balance nonetheless. Somehow, Kennit had gotten a hold of their enemy's weapon arm and he clung to it with desperate strength, hindering the accuracy of the chain. Infuriated, the Re-imagined smashed an elbow into Kennit's face, then shook off the man's weakened grip. Whirling, he back-handed the reeling human but before he could do more, Kvetch was on him.
The Vetshi scrabbled his way up his enemy's back, digging his nails and the arrag into the yielding flesh for purchase. Despite the Re-imagined's attempts at dislodging him, Kvetch made it up to his shoulders. Hunched over his foe's human head, he drove the point of the envenomed arrag deep into his right eye. There was an explosion of blood. Beneath him, the Re-imagined shuddered and started to howl. Kvetch withdrew the arrag. Plunged it into the dead man's face again and again and again. "How doed it feel now, corpde fucker? How doed it feel now?"
Still howling, the Re-imagined sunk to its knees. The Vetshi rode him down, then tore his weapon free, and jumped from the convusling shoulders. Holding his ruined face and weeping blood, the Re-imagined collapsed onto his back.
Kvetch kicked his hands away from his head. As the thing twisted beneath him, he used his clawed foot to scrape away what remained of the human mask. By the time he had exposed the Vetshi beneath it all, the Re-imagined was no longer writhing. Froth bubbled from his slack jaws. His golden eye was barely open.
"You die revealed," Kvetch snarled. "May the dea condume you, and the fidh eat your cock you badtard."
The Re-imagined tried to say something, but only blood came out.
By the time Kvetch turned away, he was already dead.
Kvetch found Kennit propped up against the rusting innards of some scrap metal machine, his hat on the ground beside him, and the loaded Dreadnought in his lap. He had his left hand clapped weakly to his right side, but the blood just spilled through his fingers and was soaked up by the thirsty ground.
He wasn't alone.
Kvetch ghosted closer, tasting decay on the air. The scrapyard offered the Vetshi hundreds of places to take cover and he moved nearer between towering gears, chrome frameworks, shrines made of twisted miles of wire... He left his staff by a rather distinct metal skeleton and proceeded on without it. His shuffling totter was gone, replaced by a predatory lope and he leaned into it, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two. As he ran, he dialated his pupils and the night lightened perceptibly before him.
Something laughed up ahead. "Oh my," it chuckled. "Did something hurt you? Hmm? Did something rip you up a little? Oh my."
Kennit said something too soft for Kvetch to hear in response. It was recieved by a howling shriek of mirth. A different voice, this one distinctly female, replied, "Now why would you do that? We are such pretty people. How could you threaten such pretty people?"
"They held up a mirror," a third voice added. "They held up a mirror and said I was such a perfect boy."
Kvetch flitted to the top of a jagged hill of disembowled machinery. He flattened himself down when he reached the crest and lay there, assessing the scene.
The three Re-imagined had ringed Kennit in a semi-circle. For the moment, the sight of the nocked Dreadnought was keeping them at a respectful distance, but they were circling closer with every passing second. They hadn't yet realized what an empty threat the crossbow was, but they soon would. Even if the Dreadnought had been a regular weapon, Kennit looked like he barely had the strength to hold it steady. It wouldn't take long for the Re-imagined to work up the nerve for a full out charge. They knew how hard they were to kill.
Kvetch tried to pinpoint their leader but they seemed to treat each other as three seperate entities. It was most likely only chance that these particular individuals had scented or seen the injured human. They would probably tear each other to shreds later over the corpse, but at the moment they were working in un-coordinated tandem to ensure that there would be a corpse to fight over.
The biggst threat with Re-imagined came from the largest individuals. The more flesh they encased their true bodies in, the harder they were to kill. Two of the gathered were fairly scrawny, but the first speaker was immensely tall and wrapped in layers of tattered finery. He was also the most intact and the only one that went armed. The way he carried the meat hook on its length of chain suggested he had strength to burn. Kvetch zeroed in on him as the most dangerous and gently eased the arrag loose in their sheaths. He waited for them to close their circle a bit more, so their backs would be completely turned to him.
"Me?" the first one was saying. "I just want your left arm. Mine is a bit broken, oh my, yes. Be a gentleman and oblidge a fellow, won't you?"
"Such a perfect boy," the other muttered, shambling closer. Kvetch thought him a Ganta originally but there was no way to be sure of that.
The female of the group was the smallest. The only part that remained of her Imagination, was a carefully preserved woman's face, grafted onto the body of something insectile and scuttling. Scraps of her previous body hung from her dull chitin like remnants of a bad molt. She darted back and forth on needle-like legs, maintaining how beautiful she was in her shrieking laugh of a voice.
Kennit bled his life away and watched them come. There was a mixture of resignation, disgust, and agony in his face.
Emboldened by his lack of response, the Re-imagined advanced with renewed hunger. It was the opportunity Kvetch had been waiting for.
The Vetshi launched himself down the scrap heap, moving noiselessly for all his speed. Robes billowing, eyes blazing, he waited until his descent took him close enough to the ground, and then he leapt straight down into the mud and the muck. He landed soundlessly on all fours, rolled once, and shot up into the attack with the arrag in his hands.
His first pass hamstrung the largest of the Re-imagined.
The arrag flashed, and the Re-imagined went down to his knees. His stolen legs ripped themselves apart down the dreadful wounds when he tried to move. Kvetch shot right, circling around his disabled enemy to engage the second most intact of the group. The-thing-that-could-have-been-a-Ganta, saw him coming and reached for him with bloated hands. Kvetch ducked inside its grasp. He sammed the poisoned arrag up as far as he could, just under the thing's sternum. The Re-imagined screamed in pain and tried to crush him against its chest in a death grip, but Kvetch whirled, wrenching the arrag free, and darted away. The Re-imagined's arms closed on nothing.
The thing with the woman's face came flying up out of the darkness. Kvetch flipped the second arrag around in hand, checked his forward motion, and let fly. The blade shot out, splitting the air. It took the Re-imagined right in her howling mouth. Her scream cut off abruptly as the weapon punched through the back of her throat and she collapsed in a heap, retching blood.
"Kvetch!"
Kennit's voice yanked the Vetshi around just in time to duck under the shrieking meat hook as it swung at his head with crippling force. If Kennit hadn't alerted him to it, that blow would have crushed his skull into so much pulp.
The first Re-imagined advanced on the Vetshi, swinging the hook in a tight, dangerous circle. He had prised open his ruined human legs, splitting them apart down the wounds with his hook, to let his true limbs free. Now, he stalked forward on arched paws and the remnants of his human limbs hung down from his knees in bloody shreds.
Kvetch smiled at his enemy from the depths of his hood, but there was only cold fury in the grin. "And they call me a traitor?" he spat. "At leadt I have the decency not to hide in a dead mand dkin."
"Oh my. Look at you," the Re-imagined crowed. "I think I will keep you when I'm finished here. I always wanted to look inside our kind and find out what disfigures us so. Perhaps I can make you glorious, as I am glorious."
"The only thing glorioud about you will be your death. Let the poidon of your ancedtord judge you, you corpde fucking badtard."
"That tongue of yours has to go, oh my, yes. Let's take care of that first."
The Re-imagined cast the hook with brutally sudden accuracy. Kvetch threw himself to the ground to avoid the vicious piece of metal, then turned his fall into a controlled roll. The Re-imagined snapped the chain back, shooting the hook into his open palm. Without apparent effort, he yanked the hook free and tossed it aside. Kvetch barely managed to avoid the following blow of the now un-impeded chain as his enemy layed into the ground with terrible power. The chain tore the earth to pieces, sending chunks of dirt and shrapnel into the air. Kvetch rolled again and again, somehow always just ahead of the lashing metal tongue.
Siezing on frantic inspiration, he gathered himself up onto his haunches and dove behind the body of the second Re-imagined where it lay convulsing in the final stages of arrag poisoning. The chain licked out after him. Slammed into the prostrate Re-imagined, and splattered him like an over-ripe melon. The links snagged briefly on the wire mesh and stapling that remained buried deep within the corpse, and Kvetch exploded forward in that miniscule half second window, that single opportunity in time. But for all his speed and all his reflexes, he knew he was never going to be fast enough.
Already the Re-imagined had tugged the chain free. The end of it grazed the Vetshi's shoulder on the backswing and now he was raising it above his head, raising it like a terrible steel bullwhip, raising it, and raising it-- and Kennit came out of nowhere to tackle the Re-imagined in a flurry of blood.
Their enemy was large enough and Kennit's charge weak enough that neither of them hit the ground, but the Re-imagined stumbled and lost his balance nonetheless. Somehow, Kennit had gotten a hold of their enemy's weapon arm and he clung to it with desperate strength, hindering the accuracy of the chain. Infuriated, the Re-imagined smashed an elbow into Kennit's face, then shook off the man's weakened grip. Whirling, he back-handed the reeling human but before he could do more, Kvetch was on him.
The Vetshi scrabbled his way up his enemy's back, digging his nails and the arrag into the yielding flesh for purchase. Despite the Re-imagined's attempts at dislodging him, Kvetch made it up to his shoulders. Hunched over his foe's human head, he drove the point of the envenomed arrag deep into his right eye. There was an explosion of blood. Beneath him, the Re-imagined shuddered and started to howl. Kvetch withdrew the arrag. Plunged it into the dead man's face again and again and again. "How doed it feel now, corpde fucker? How doed it feel now?"
Still howling, the Re-imagined sunk to its knees. The Vetshi rode him down, then tore his weapon free, and jumped from the convusling shoulders. Holding his ruined face and weeping blood, the Re-imagined collapsed onto his back.
Kvetch kicked his hands away from his head. As the thing twisted beneath him, he used his clawed foot to scrape away what remained of the human mask. By the time he had exposed the Vetshi beneath it all, the Re-imagined was no longer writhing. Froth bubbled from his slack jaws. His golden eye was barely open.
"You die revealed," Kvetch snarled. "May the dea condume you, and the fidh eat your cock you badtard."
The Re-imagined tried to say something, but only blood came out.
By the time Kvetch turned away, he was already dead.