Crash Landing, Part 2



Logging Started: 3-22-2012 9:41:03 PM

The dull orange sun isn't brutal, but the rainforest is extremely muggy, air feeling like molten jello. As promised the large predators haven't bothered them during the daytime, though there's been the occasional tense moment when running across less dangerous things, like a small herd of travelling turtles (more like snails with spiked tails than anything an earther would call a 'turtle'), dangerous plants underfoot, little kermitoids snapping at boots, etc. The extra gravity makes it even worse, and it begins to wear. Even Amy looks grateful as suddenly the forest opens into a small clearing, around a good-sized flat rock. "...mf. Want to stop for lunch?"

Ilkarin nods, panting a bit as she was trained to deal with harsh conditions but they did eventually start to wear on her. She steps out onto an area and puts down her backpack (of whatever she could scrounge from the ship) and began to sort through the materials for any sort of food. Amy takes a long drink from her canteen, bolts down her ration pack, and pokes around the edge of the clearing looking for anything edible. It's a pretty random mishmash of stuff -- a big orange pinecone, some leaves, and a few bugs, but it seems to serve. "We've made decent time. We should be in colonist territory before sundown, and then we can relax a little..." Something small, brown and fuzzy chirps from the branchlets, and another chirps back across the clearing. Things seem peaceful.

Ilkarin tries to relax, but her combat training still has her on edge. She begins to munch down a few small portion meals, mostly "snack" type items and also drinks at her water, but tries not to swallow the whole thing in case she needs it again. "How long have you been on this world?"

Amy hesitates, "Born and raised here." She still seems pretty wary herself, ears following the noises of the fuzzy blobs back and forth, though nothing gets in the way of her appetite. "I always seem to come back eventually. The world outside just seems so pushy and loud and nosy... And I come back, until I get sick of being here too. :p" There is a loud piercing whistle from the trees, echoing and faraway. *Wheeep!* *Wheep!* At this Amy earflats. "...That's a tribe signal. Wild people. They might not be friendly." Another whistle answers from the west.

Ilkarin tenses up and remains low as she finishes what she had remaining and packed the rest away in her backpack before slinging it along her back once again. "Should we be moving?" She asks, a hand lowering to her pistol.

You murmur, "Which way? They got us from at least two directions..." A commotion in the underbrush announces the arrival of two of them, an odd looking pair -- a short, squat, tough-looking badger with a colorful mohawk and equally colorful kilt carrying a copper spear, and a slightly less compressed looking human woman in poncho, carrying a bow and quiver. Amy begins, "doInt!jinborgo --" but is cut off by a wave of the badger's hand. "Everyone know you speak spacer's language, little one." He grins wiiiiide at Ilkarin. "She must too." The grin grows wider yet, until the woman elbows him. "Ahem. You're a long, long way from home. I hope you can pay for the trouble you caused...""

Ilkarin remains silent and listens, her eyes seeming to narrow into slits for a second before forming back to their rounded shape. Ilkarin had not yet been put into a need for fighting, so what exactly did she learn? Still, she seemed to wait for Amy's commands, seeing the girl was a bit more versed in this world than she was. Better to take caution then make problems.

Amy, volunteer diplomat. "We're not paying you a thing, and you're not the one to be asking. C'mon, we're going." Taking a step forward, the woman casually sets an arrow loose in her direction, plunking into the ground before her feet -- causing her to launch backwards like a tripped mousetrap. The badger grunts and lunges toward Ilkarin, trying to knock her hand away from her gun.

Ilkarin stays her ground and slips her hands from the sides of her hips to grab at the badgers sides instead and tries to throw him aside with the momentum he was using to lunge at her. "I don't want to harm you..." she says, truly being honest about it and starts to make her way back to Amy if she can.

The point of the spear nudges at her stomach and stays there, the sturdy build of the badger making him difficult to tip over. "CEASE!" Amy winces and halts her advance, seeing Ilkarin threatened, glaring daggers at the badger. The woman has another arrow at the ready, aimed at Amy.

Ilkarin relents from attacking, but at the same time her eyes wander about as if looking for an opening or weak-point to the badger. She began to plan out various actions of attack, but at the same time she was unsure how well they would succeed. Deciding that Amy could hold her own, she grabbed the spear's wooden part and this time doesn't relent in showing off what she REALLY can do as she snaps the end like a twig and throws it aside. "Should I now?"

The badger blinks at the missing spearpoint. ....Jabs it at her anyway, shoving hard, trying to drive her back. Amy takes the distraction to kick the legs out from under the human woman, who sets loose the arrow, but it goes wild.

Ilkarin oofs but her skin, (despite it being soft) was more relsilient than some realized and she takes the blow, falling back a step but slams her fist against the badger's face, once again recalling the phrase "Like being hit by a wall of iron." as someone had described the full force of Ilkarin's punch. Though she only meant to knock the badger out, looking down and noticing the broken spear had wedged some wood into her suit and also a bit of blood to drip. "Darn it..."

The badger twists, taking the blow to the side of the head, and keels over from the force of the punch while yelling something incomprehensible. "man-gamFiskam*Wheeeeep!*" Small *phut* noises and tiny zipping darts begin zinging through the clearing. One sticks into a tree, looking like some sort of wooden thorn. Amy twitches again, and vaults for the edge of the clearing they were heading for, "NOW run for it!"

Ilkarin crouches and hurries along, bolting as best she can and trying to keep low to avoid being hit by anything, but of course her body was already pumping with adrenaline so if she did get hit, she would not yet know. "Where we running to?"

Amy blurs from piece of cover to piece of cover, pausing to not leave Ilkarin behind. "They won't chase us past the river, it's just a little further!" Loud whoops and crashing vegetation are heard behind as their assailants begin to chase in earnest.

Ilkarin pants and huffs, thinking of how out of shape she was despite the workouts she endured on an almost daily basis as she followed Amy to the best of her ability, grunting as the wound from the spear began to burn a little.

And no wonder; running is 50% more work here than on Earth, the gravity's so harsh enough people grow up looking squashed. Amy doesn't seem to have much trouble with it, but isn't leaving you just yet. With almost no warning the forest just ends, blindingly dense vegetation giving way to a broad, shallow river of brown rapids. Amy charges for it...

Ilkarin blinks as if Amy's course of action was a little inside but pants, following suit as she kept her fingers crossed the girl knew what she was doing. She looked back for a brief moment and saw more darts hitting the trees along with arrows. Man they were getting persistent.

Amy springs straight across the river, and almost makes it -- almost. About three-quarters of the way through the jump, a....thing erupts from the water, difficult to describe. Sort of a long, pink, flexible tongue with teeth on the sides zaps out like a frog nailing a fly, snagging her ankle, slamming her into the far side, and dragging her back towards the shallow waters.

Ilkarin gasps and leaps as best she can and lands on the other side but oofs as her legs collapse beneath her and she lands on her butt. She scrambles to get up, her legs feeling a little numb as she turns around and pulls her pistol out, trying to aim at the creature in the water to help Amy. Focusing her shot, she aimed for the beast's eye but it was moving about and Ilkarin's vision was a bit blurry from the heat and exertion.

The creature is practically invisible in the opaque, brown waters, though you can guess where the center might be from the direction the tongue's always pointing from. Amy holds on tight to a small tree, but the tree itself begins to tilt, and she lets go to grab her knife -- being pulled rapidly back towards the water. The creature surfaces now, and could be called a frogodile -- huge toothless mouth like a frog, green scaly hide like a crocodile, and one great eye on top, fixed looking upwards.

Ilkarin aims her gun again as best she can and pulls the trigger, firing a "bullet" of energy at the beast as she winced, her legs still throbbing a bit from the fall as she watches Amy and hopes for the best, she could not stand back up yet.

It definitely felt that one, thrashing back and going back under the water with a 'bloop'. Amy is dragged under the water, and the rapids look quite a bit more splashy for a little bit. Amy crawls back out all smeared, disheveled, and nicked in various places from the nasty tongue, a tongue which is now severed. She plops down beside you dizzily, and manages, "Nice shot..." The blowguns have ceased.

Ilkarin nods and puts her gun back, looking down as it was flashing red, recharging it's next shot. She began to rise up but grunted and fell down on her rump again, looking at her leg and pulling a dart from it. "Guess they are better shots that I gave them credit for." Amy attempts to snatch the dart out of her hands. "Let me see that!" Peering at it intensely. She sniffs it, and gives it a lick. "... You're going to be all right. That was just a sleep dart, not poison"

Ilkarin says, "o-oh? *She suddenly felt very heavy and fell backward, passing out. Not just from the dart, but an overall combination of exertion, the excitement and what just happened to her recently. Though Amy now had a sleeping dragon engineer before her.*"

The world goes dark for a long while... The first thing you might notice returning to sensibility is the clatter of hard rain on a tin roof and a flickering light... You're inside a small dirt-floored room, lying on a matress on a metal cot. The building is an upside-down U capped at either end, like a prefab metal shed, and is equipped as a somewhat primitive guest room, with bed, table, chair, lamp(oil lamp!), your bags, and very little else. The chair has a lynx sitting in it. "Ilkarin?"

Ilkarin groans and mmm's a little, rubbing at her head as she slowly sat up and tried to make sense of the world as it was slowly coming back to focus. She looked down and found the top half of her suit unzipped and her shirt a bit sweaty, had Amy examined her when she was asleep, or had she done it earlier during the lunch to relieve the heat? "Y-yes?" She shook her head, shifting a toe or two to try and bring movement back into her limbs.

Amy wouldn't have left you with your gun if she'd been shaking you down for your stuff. Making sure you're breathing probably. Amy grins, genuinely relieved, though the grin itself isn't too relieving, for those teeth just aren't right for a lynx. shark, pirhanna, anglerfish perhaps. The glimpse is very brief and could be mistaken for imagination. "About time! Was beginning to think you wouldn't come out of it... I dragged you to the town. The pond-grabber tongue paid for the room; there's a bounty on them. Do you feel all right? Sick? Thirsty? Hungry?" Stepping out of the chair to pad around the bed slowly, at a comfortable distance.

Ilkarin nods and gets up, but once again falls back down to her knees and coughs. "A little sick I think. Also a little food and drink sounds good about now." She pants and sits back on the bed, rubbing along her aching temples. "I suspect I wouldn't have been much help to you if I had no combat training...though my methods are a bit basic."

Amy offers you your canteen, and half a strange red fruit, the size of a large grapefruit and covered all over with scales like a pine cone. It smells wonderful and tastes better, but no earthly flavor compares to it. "You're tougher than you look," Amy notes. "Most folks would be crying after an hour or two of walking in 1.5 gee."

Amy also offers a hand, to get you back on your feet.

Ilkarin says, "well, if anything my trainers have said about me, is that I don't give up easily. " She huffs again and gives a bit of a smile. "besides, I don't like revealing all I have right away." She takes the hand and stands up. "So how long was I out?""

Amy thinks. "About 10 hours -- they got you good. It'll be morning soon, and we can go bother Vic, if this rain ever lets up. The river's the outer edge of the city, beyond it is farmland, then town."

(OOC) Amy will need to stop here sadly, so I can plan a bunch more. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I ahve. (OOC) Ilkarin says, "oh yes, I did enjoy it very much. :)" (OOC) Amy grins. "Until next time, then. Thanks for playing." (OOC) Ilkarin says, "you too. "

Logging Stopped: 3-23-2012 2:31:08 AM