RP: 188604 Sand World Dig

After checking which way the wind was blowing Ace smeared himself with the ash to help hide his scent he'd wash it off later. Then he drew his knives and followed the tracks.

Blood on the Mountain:

Ace follows the animal trails for what feels like an hour or two. No precise measure of time, of course. If he had a watch it had been taken away by that Rubi woman, and no one had bothered to survey the planet to the point where the position in the sun in the sky was documented in terms of time increments. More trail, down into the woods, and Ace eventually finds... A small clearing, littered with the corpses of what looks like a pack of wild dogs. Probably strays abandoned in the city who had taken to the mountain. Interbreeding mutts, that were equal parts wolf descended and feral.

Their corpses are dashed against rocks, clawed by something big. A few are even crushed flat as pancakes, looking like someone dropped a huge boulder on the things... These things at the very least seem edible, if one doesn't mind eating carrion from a dog. And from what Ace remembers from the markets, canine leather seems to be the standard for the planet. Their pelts might be worth something?

Ace grabbed the corpses and tied their tails together to make them easier to carry then he decided to find out what killed the mutts. Big game was always his favorite after all. "Now where would I go after doing something like this. Probably back home." Ace searched around for the large tracks.

Thylarctos Plummetus Osmani, AKA The Great Osmani Drop Bear:

There was one thing Ace would remember before feeling a world of pain: When predators are possibly still around, one should always secure the area before doing anything else. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. The time it took to gather up and secure the carcasses was sufficient for the predator above to maneuver and drop down from the trees above.

The only thing Ace particularly notices at first is an immense weight hitting him at speed from above, buckling his legs underneath him and crushing him against the blackened earth of the mountainside. Tiny pinpoints of light float about in Ace's vision, as he slowly becomes aware of being flat on his stomach, all the air smashed out of his lungs due to crushing pressure on his back accompanied by a... Fluffy sensation against his bared skin.

The mental image of the dogs crushed flat lingers for just a second: They'd been crushed by this thing falling out of the trees. If he hadn't been highly augmented, he would almost certainly have been killed or at least severely injured. As it stood, he'd just be looking at a massive full body bruise. He'd be able to work through the pain though, at least when he can get to his feet.

All at once the thing moved, and Ace would be able to get a look at it. If he'd seen one, it would remind him of a Koala: Albeit one about nine feet tall. A great mass of grey and white fur, smeared with the blood of the dogs it had killed. A big black nose, round fuzzy ears, and dark twinkling adorable eyes almost made it seem cute until one noticed the huge talons and the open maw full of flesh rending teeth.

On all fours, it circles the downed man, seemingly keeping a cautious distance as if to see if he's still alive or maybe good for eating.

Ace groaned before standing up with his knives out. "Your a big guy aren't ya. If you wanna dance we can." Ace grabbed a fistful of ash and threw it at the beast face. "You're not gonna eat me. At least not in one piece that is."

Trash Talking Drop Bears is the Definition of Futility:

As Ace makes a lunge to throw ash at the beast, its reflexes combined with the cautious distance it was already maintaining save it from being blinded. If that tactic were to work, Ace would have to close some distance and contend with its great reach in the process. Without guns, alone and armed only with knives: This would not be a fight fought without immense risks being taken.

It didn't seem to register Ace's taunting as anything other than noises from a thing which had come to scavenge its probably hard earned kills. The Drop Bear reared back onto its hind legs, and held its taloned paws aloft to loom over Ace, exposing its big cuddly tummy in the process. Raising its head it took a deep breath which sounded like a deep wheeze, before releasing a 'roar' which needs to be described in quotation. The sound it made was really more like a big belch.

To the locals it almost certainly was a noise which would be heard in nightmares, but to Ace it just sounded a bit silly.

Ace decided to roar back before faking a charge at the Bear. "C'mon you charge me and its over."

Drop Bears Gonna Drop:

Seeing Ace refuse to back down, the creature flops back down to all fours and continues circling him, this time moving at speed. Bounding one way, then the other it takes a surprisingly powerful leap to gain some height and dig its claws into a tree. A short mad-cap scrabble and it gained a bit of extra altitude before flinging itself bodily downwards at Ace. Maybe 2000 pounds of Drop Bear coming at the mercenary, big muscular fluffy buns first.

Ace threw the stabbing knife as hard as he could at the bears underbelly before rolling out of the way. He then got ready to hit the bear once it hit the ground with his slashing knife.

The knife thuds home into the bear's undercarriage, Ace's enhanced strength allowing it to penetrate all the way down to the guard of the knife. A trickle of blood oozing out into the fluffy white fur of its underside. The enormous beast lands heavily next to Ace, slamming down on its backside near him as it lets out another belch-like roar of fury and pain.

Of the numerous evolutionary advantages of the Great Osmani Drop Bear, one of the rarely seen advantages of the massive ambush-killer was that its customary ground-pound buttsmash motion allow it to immediately continue its offensive with its talons should it miss. Ace manages to get a slash off on the creature's face as it barrels into him; a bloody line drawn across its eye as it swipes its paw across his Ace's torso, giving him five deep cuts to his chest and knocks him down with sheer force.

Down on the ground and bleeding, with a now ruined shirt: Ace sees it start to circle again, moving towards the trees.

Ace gets back up showing that he will not back down. "These are mine!" Ace yelled indicating the corpses. "You will be the one who dies if this continues!"

Drop Bears Don't Speak English:

Standing his ground against the bear, Ace sees starts to clamber up another of the nearby scorched trees. Knife still in its belly. It looks down and starts to give a few more sharp breaths and its burping roar. Clearly trying to answer what it perceived as Ace's shouted challenge, at the same time, its retreating to a position where it had the high ground and trying to warn off what it saw as a scavenger meant it was likely reeling from the loss of sight in one eye.

Chances were that knife fighting a massive bear wasn't going to end smoothly, had Ace brought backup this would have been relatively simple. Tomblyn's energy pistol, or Scrabler's grenades would have been a tremendous asset right now.

But for now Ace was left with a choice: If he stood around with the carrion from the bear's kills he'd have to stand and fight, possibly getting more wounded in the process. He could certainly take the bear in a straight fight due to his augmentations, but the bear was still nine feet tall and had maybe 1500 pounds on Ace. Ace wouldn't get away unscathed. However the bear was trying to warn off Ace. Wounded and half blind, Ace could almost certainly grab some of the bear's kills and retreat back to camp.

Would Ace stand and fight, risking his own bodily well-being to take the bear's kills, along with enough meat from the bear to last the entire journey, and a prize pelt to boot? Or, knowing full well that no one on the expedition is a doctor, would he take the lesser prize and keep himself together in case he has to fight again in the journey?

Ace decided to come back for the bear later. As it was wounded so it would be easy to follow the trail it would leave behind. "I'll be back for you later I'm not a complete idiot." Upon returning with what he had grabbed before leaving from the bear. "Tomblyn I found some bear like creature and fought it slue its wounded. It's huge if we kill it it should provide food for the entire journey. It should be bleeding so we can track it fairly easily. I can keep it distracted so you can shoot it."

On return, Tomblyn and Flea are sitting either side of a campfire that emits a strange reddish and metallic smelling smoke, caused by the burning of the strange local trees. The two seem tense, and look like they have argued over something.

It had taken a few hours to trek up the mountain and seek tracks to begin with: Night had fallen by the time a wounded Ace manages to make it back to camp hauling the carcasses of the dogs. Navigating was harder the darker it got, and with each step the foul smelling carcasses would wobble, causing the heavy bruising from being crushed by the bear to flare up in a nasty dull pain. Every tiny misstep in the twilight would lead to a split in the scabbing over claw-marks on Ace's chest, causing him to bleed anew.

While Ace's superior endurance would allow him to just grit his teeth and bear it (so to speak), with no doctor around, these wounds would be left to heal on their own unstitched. He'd have some nasty scars by the time these would heal over, but they weren't fatal.

Tomblyn was a nice enough guy, as well as an experienced wasteland survivalist. He explains that as night has fallen, tracking a brachiating bear by blood spots would be more or less impossible. If anything he seems more concerned with two things: The first being patching up Ace's wounds so they don't go septic. The second being that night had fallen and Scrabler hadn't returned yet.

Tomblyn expresses some worry that the man in the machine may have de-synched on his own out in the woods, and could make his way back down to the city and go on a killing spree. He thinks you should track down your machine friend as soon as possible.

Flea on the other hand seems irritable.

"I thought we were going out into the desert." She says, prodding at the fire "I'm not here to play hearthkeeper at a hunting camp. We should just tend to that meat you got there before we sleep, find that metal thing in the morning, and get on our merry way."

Day 1 End, Night 1 Start:

Losses:
-1 Knife.
-1 Day's Algae rations.
-Ace sustains minor wounds.
-Ace's shirt is dashingly battle-damaged.
-Scrabler is missing in woods.

Gains:
-6 Mutt Carcasses (Can be butchered for meat rations and trophy hides, will spoil if not butchered)

"If Scrabler has Desynced one we can't resync him easily since Aries isn't here and two he is probably killing a lot of stuff so there should be a trail of dead bodies." Ace grabbed one of the sticks on the outside of the fire that was still burning and put it out so that there was just embers on it and put it to the wound on his chest to cauterize it. "There wound shouldn't go septic at least lets prepare these carcasses."

Guts without Glory:

As night proper sets in, the team gets to work. The fire is stoked, bedrolls laid out in the wagon in lieu of a tent. The horses are watered and fed. As everyone present is used to some sort of survival situation, they can each manage the skinning and butchering of the carcasses. But as the process is quite laborious, each person can only manage to butcher two of the carcasses before the night winds down... Without the parts which had been gnawed on by the bear, and rid of spoiling innards, the meat from the dogs will now last longer. The pelts are carved from the bodies, and piled up in the back of the wagon.

The quality varied; but as far as resources went, leathers were mostly used in these parts by those who can afford to keep a pet, or spend the resources to keep animals. They should fetch a decent price to the right buyers, or would be good for trade out beyond the cities.

As the group settles down to camp for the night, Flea peels away from the group to mind her own resources and her mount. Seems she wants to bivouac away from the group somewhat. Ace and Tomblyn have their bedrolls in the wagon, presumably somewhere out there Scrabler isn't bothered as he doesn't sleep to begin with.

Before sleeping, Tomblyn explains that as Ace was in that prison for a while: He had to be the one to deal with Scrabler's desynch problem, and he had used his engineering expertise to work out a way to manually reboot the robot. Tomblyn also explains that while Flea had shown him the route to the location, she had also mentioned two problems:

The deserts and badlands on the way to the location were controlled by groups of bandits, whose numbers had been increased dramatically after Uso's reign had commenced. While Flea also made sure to mention that she knew how to avoid them, she refused to tell Tomblyn how one would do that. Saying she didn't trust them to not just kill her and take back the money she'd been paid.

On top of that, the actual area that Ace detected something underground had a reputation of being somehow haunted, or inhabited by monsters. According to Flea, people who tried to pass through the area called the Moaning Dunes were harried by pale creatures that would destroy their camps and drag away children. Others have said that those who live near it have a tendency to mysteriously die, or go insane.

Ace titled his head. "So you can reset him who held him down?" Ace grabbed the slashing knife. "We can handle the bandits although these ghost could be aliens or robots protecting the facility we have a high chance of beating them but not without some of us getting hurt or worse die if it gets to be that we are drived in a corner I'll make an opening you and Scrabler should use that chance to escape contact these people they'll make sure that I keep my end of our promise." Ace handed Tomblyn a paper with how to contact his closest friend.

Night 1 End, Day 2 Start:

Tomblyn nods, and expresses thanks. Then proceeds to bunk down for the night. The woods are quiet, the odd metallic smell of the blood trees, and the distant howl of wild dogs. A peaceful night in the wilderness The next morning dawns. Day two of the expedition dawns, and Ace awakes to find Tomblyn sleeping starfish-sprawled with a leg and arm on top of Ace.

Outside, the smell of a cooking flank of dog-meat for breakfast invades Ace's senses. Flea is out already, having risen early and begun preparing the meat rations for the day.

"If you leave to collect your friend after eating, we'll have time to get down towards the east slope badlands by the end of the day. From there it's about a day and a half mounted to arrive." Flea says, apparently a bit less irritated than the previous day. "We have enough meat rations for the next few days, but we'll need to get our hands on some salt to cure it properly if you want to make it last. You can stay here and try to collect more meat and pelts, but if you're just staying here to loot and hunt I'm considering this your destination I guided you towards and heading back to town."

Losses:
Scrabler ammo at 80% due to a night of killing.
A potential party member has died.

Gains:
Tomblyn has learned "Resynch"!
Flea has gained +1 Heart Point due to listening and not interfering further.
6 days Meat Rations (Expires in 3 days, can be preserved if salt is found)
6 Canine Prize Pelts (Medium)

Ace shakes Tomblyn till he wakes up. "Breakfast is ready eat then we'll look for Scrabler do you want to hold him down or should I." Ace moved over and grabbed one of the flanks of meat and wolfed it down. "Thanks for cooking and I'll try to find salt. Tombyln eat quickly and if you know which way Scrabler went lead me."

The Dogs Breakfast:

The food Flea prepares is almost a special kind of foul. While it doesn't have the sandy texture, or the taste of slimy glass: It initially has a sort of heavy meaty taste, like a cross between beef and mutton but a little brothy somehow. All in all not too unpleasant or ungainly. What happens next however is the weird sensation of the fats in the meat congealing on the tongue, and rolling down the throat in a sort of thick paste around chewed meat. The taste isn't bad, but it manages to sit unpleasantly in the stomach in a heavy wad.

As far as a hearty breakfast goes, it'd certainly make a stomach feel full for a long time. It also feels like a giant pillbug has curled up in your stomach to take a nap.

Tomblyn makes a face, and explains that Ace will have to hold Scrabler down so the joint under the robot's left arm can be found. The meal concludes, camp is semi-packed up and then they're on their way. Tracking Scrabler proves moderately hard. As a thief used to moving unseen, and one with no real bodily functions he didn't exactly leave much of a trail. The most Tomblyn and Ace manage is to find a general direction, and from there Flea points out which lodge was the most likely.

Soon, all three arrive in a small clearing just up the mountain. A heavy, squat log cabin sits in the middle of it, the bloodwood walls and shingles are burnt black from the explosion but the sturdy wood managed to stand. More tellingly, are the signs of gunshots around the cabin. Holes in trees, ruts in the ground. The air hangs heavily, with the slightly peppery scent of chemical weaponry having been deployed a few hours ago. The air was safe now, but someone had been gassed.

The front door of the cabin is open, and a trail of semi-dried blood leaks out down the front steps. From the inside a steady 'schukk schukk schukk' noise drifts out into the woods. The sound of a knife being mechanically driven into meat. By the sounds of things, Scrabler is inside: Active and violent.