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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Dec 14, 2022 19:34:57 GMT -5
It quickly becomes apparent that this situation has escalated, and she doesn't just think it's in regards to Ulrich suddenly just... walking through the air. The appearance of the mama behir makes that the most apparent, and she's coming right for them. Okay, okay, tiny cretins are after the cart. Ulrich will try to distract what he can. All she has is a couple scattered bits of armor and a hammer she can throw. She's strong, so if anything, she could just... start throwing them. Oh, but they're so cute, she doesn't want to hit them. Maybe her opinion will change after enough bites.
And there goes Ulrich. Leni is very serious about this situation. Maybe Astrid should be taking this more seriously. What's the goal here? Don't get bit, get the cart moving, don't get eaten. Okay!
"Okay!" Astrid says out loud this time, clapping her hands together in some odd means of psyching herself up. There's only one thought in her tiny gremlin brain: cart need go fast. So she hooks her hammer on her belt and uses all her might to push on the cart, hustling it and the mechanical animal pulling it along. Her feet dig into the dirt, and after a good push, the cart picks up speed and lurches forward. Okay, this is good. Great! Keep up the momentum, keep it going. "GOOOOO, cart, GOOOO!" she grimaces through her teeth.
When the cart finally gets moving, it becomes apparent what the swarm of baby behir are up to. Another screech of the mother behir; she spots an easier snack, one that can be swallowed whole: the human man floating through the air towards her. A blue glow gathers in her maw, and when she gets into range as she charges toward him, she fires off a line of lightning at Ulrich.
Many of the tiny behir peel away to join their mother for a snack, but the rest continue their forward assault. Even with the cart moving faster, they still catch up. Astrid does her best to avoid being bitten as they nip at her ankles, and she kicks them away best she can. At one point, she turns and punts one with all her might like a football. It squeals, soaring through the air and landing with a tiny splat almost two hundred feet away. (Being small, it bounces right back and joins the fray again.)
Okay, this is not good.
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Post by Leni-Aura Thunderpaw on Dec 15, 2022 0:21:33 GMT -5
Leni-Aura’s ears perk in surprise; but her brows furrow, and her worried expression shifts to one of impatience upon receiving a stupid grin and a wink from Ulrich in response to her question. “ Tch,” she tsks, rolling her eyes over his answer while she crosses her arms across her chest. “ Not a serious bone in your body…” The wind sweeps across the cart, tugging at Leni-Aura’s brunette hair; and her eyes naturally gravitate back to Ulrich. She watches as the man steps up on air; still, seemingly in a good mood about being the bait. She looks at him for a moment before looking towards the oncoming Behir with a slight scoff. “ Just do not get eaten while you’re doing that, idiot.” she tells him over her shoulder. “ I will stay with Astrid, then.” Similarly, the wind carries past as Leni-Aura bounds off the cart after Astrid; but with her paws light against the air, she never touches the ground. (1)“ Stay on your feet,” she directs the girl; which could really mean any number of things with Leni-Aura’s somewhat clumsy vocabulary— Astrid does a pretty good job of that, though— and she seems to be trying to push on the cart, which… speed at this point won’t do much, but it’s the thought that counts. She is still uncertain how she feels about killing the Behir; so, as Ulrich runs out to distract the mother; Leni-Aura twists her spear around— intending to use the blunt end of her weapon on the remaining Behir that scuttle away from their mother to continue the assault on the cart. It takes only a few moments for the babies to approach— and Leni-Aura leaps forwards, paws still touching air, and swings through in an arc with her spear. A couple of babies are caught in the arc and knocked clear out of the way in a home-run; but the rest swarm around and beneath her; beelining towards the cart, and to Astrid. Leni-Aura looks fretfully over her shoulder and dashes back towards the cart; the Behir, albeit lessened by Ulrich's distraction, are still a bunch of little menaces.
They snap at Astrid’s ankles and snap at the Blixtbot™ as well, but find them a lot less… favourable, in terms of a potential meal. As Astrid boots one clear to space, only for it to return seconds later, Leni-Aura spits a curse. She rears back, slamming her spear into the earth between a couple of wriggling baby Behir. Thunder cracks overhead (2), temporarily spooking the little noodles; a fair portion of them scurry several steps away at the loud noise for a small reprieve, hissing, snarling, and sputtering at them before darting back in towards the cart. As Leni-Aura sweeps through the little bastards once more with her spear to keep them from overrunning the child, one tries to bounce up and snap at her hind-legs. She throws the little noodle a furious glance, and bucks out at it when it tries again. Its squealing gradually fades into the distance when it's shot back like an arrow from the impact; and as it lands rather far off, it bounces a few times before scuttling back up to its feet and hissing at her. All in all? Yeah, this is not going well.
(1) Step of the Wind(2) Thundering Boom
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Post by Ulrich Ambriz on Dec 15, 2022 6:57:16 GMT -5
Ulrich smiles warmly at Leni’s suggestion as he floats there. “I will try not to.” He gives her a nod as she hops off of the cart gracefully to join Astrid.
He turns his attention to the task at hand now. The Mother Behir has set her eyes on him as he floats away from the cart1. She charges at him, some of her young have decided to join her in her attack while the others head for the cart. Ulrich notices a blue glow gathering in her maw, and then all of a sudden, a flash of lightning streaks through the air towards him. He manages to duck out of the way of the attack– in a bit of a comedic manner, actually– he floats even further away from the cart now.
”Aw come on Mama Behir! Is that the best you can do?! My Grandmother had better aim than you, and she was blind!” He taunts the creature.
The Mother Behir roars in frustration as she charges for the floating human. Her young follow suit in a symphony of screeches to match her. Well, now he’s get her full attention plus some of the little ones’.
He floats closer to the ground to entice the little Behirs as well. They jump and snap at him one at a time is they inch closer to him. A few manage to get dangerously close to nibbling on his boots, but he kicks them away. They go sailing through the air, but he doesn’t’ have time to admire his work. The act of harming her young has royally pissed Mama Behir off!
She lets off another screech, but this one is even angrier than the last! That horrifying glow is gathering in her maw again, and she’s closed the distance between them!
Uh oh, here we go aga–
He can’t finish that thought! All of a sudden jaws filled with razor sharp teeth snap at him! He barely managed to float backwards away from that! She just used her lightning breath as a feint! Mama Behir was a clever one! He’s brought back to the moment as the little ones are snapping at him again in swarms! The Mother joins in and starts snapping at him as well!
This is not good! He’s dodging their attacks, sure! But how long could he keep this up? Sooner or later they’d get him. He dodges one of the little ones that had the smarts to leap up from atop one of it’s siblings’ heads. Then he feels himself being tugged down lower to the swarm below him. One of the critters has latched itself onto his jacket!
”Gah! Get off you little rascal!”
Ulrich spins quickly to fling the little off of his jacket. It launches into the swarm, crashing into a couple of it’s siblings.
Then everything went dark…
To everyone else’s horror, Ulrich had just disappeared into the mouth of the Mother Behir.
Spells Used; 1. Flight
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Dec 16, 2022 20:41:15 GMT -5
This has been a great trip so far. Slow moving, struck by lightning, nipped at the ankles by tiny lightning snakes! It's an excellent time, really! Astrid couldn't ask for a better adventure. The cart continues to scoot along with the BlixtbotsTM mostly unimpeded by the pup-hirs. Her efforts do little to help. One babe-hir manages to get a solid bite on her ankle, which is luckily protected by her greaves.
"Okay, this ain't workin'," she says, whipping out her battle hammer and two-handing it like a cricket bat. "Yer cute, little guys, but yer goin' down! Time fer a game of whack-a-hir!" And with that, she starts bonking the baby behirs one at a time. One leaps up to try to bite her wrist and manages to clamp down, but the gauntlets prevent its maw from doing anything but sliding off at least this time. Without the ability to float or fly like Ulrich and Leni, Astrid starts thinking that if she makes it through this, she's going to want to learn their kind of magic sometime.
A streak of lightning crosses the sky, and Astrid glances towards the mama behir chasing and snapping at Ulrich. That guy seems to be holding his own, so Astrid refocuses on battering the tiny things around her only to hear a surprised yelp followed by a loud snap! What the? She looks back in that direction and no longer sees the mage. Wh...Where'd Ulrich go?
Gauntlets [1 hit prevention] Greaves [1 hit prevention]
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Post by Leni-Aura Thunderpaw on Dec 24, 2022 1:00:07 GMT -5
“ Go away!” Thnk!Yeee eeeeee! Another puphir goes soaring into the distance, victim to the blunt of Leni-Aura’s spear; like the last before it, the little worm ricochets off the stone and comes scuffling back with snapping jaws and scrambling limbs. Leni-Aura grits her teeth, wishing she could just run from this situation— but she can’t leave Astrid and her little entourage behind. She can’t go back on her promise to Veliky, either. “Do your companions not fight!?” she calls to Astrid, exasperated; she lifts her paws away from the clamoring pups, but still feels the air of their maws clapping shut beneath her feet. “Veliky’s usually can fight! These do not!?” There’s a frustration in her tone; she doesn’t know how to get these things to scatter.
They’re determined. Nimbus squeaks nervously from her shoulders, tail wrapped tightly around her neck. Another furious swing sends a few more pups scattering and hissing away from her vicinity; and with none hit, the momentum is powerful enough to spin Leni-Aura around mid-air. She snarls, fixing to turn back around when something else catches her attention; something much worse. She feels her heart seize in her chest for a moment; and her hazel eyes widen in horror when she spots the mother’s lunge at Ulrich’s back. “ ULRICH!” her voice cracks in the pitch of her warning, but dies in time with the snap of the mother’s jaws. She's left utterly speechless in the aftermath. Thunder rumbles in the distance as the mother slowly lifts her head; Nimbus whimpers and whines on her shoulder; and Leni-Aura chokes on a breath, frozen where she stands, searching the landscape frantically for evidence of the mage. But he’s gone; and she can barely process what’s just happened; because beneath her paws, the plane of wind disappears. Magic is a fickle thing, after all; and in the surge of a strong emotion, she can’t hold onto it. She finds herself rudely and suddenly plunged back into the moment, the world coming back to her all at once as she slams into the midst of the clamoring puphirs. One eager jaw tries to snap onto the heel of one leg, but meets her armour and cracks through it (1); another snaps at the blunt edge of her spear; and yet another tries to leap onto her back after she hits the ground. She gasps, yanking her spear free of tiny puphir jaws, and swinging the blunt edge through the frantic, excited beasts to knock them away. “GET OFF!” She clotheslines a few of the puphirs, knocking them into the cart in her frustrated swing, and bounds into the air to knock the last off.(2)
Its claws scrape across her back, but it hits the ground with what might have looked like a comical bounce in any other scenario.
Leni-Aura hits the ground a few yards away, free of the crowding puphirs— but not for long. Chest heaving, she throws a look over her shoulder at Astrid and the cart— the mass of puphirs on the verge of relocating where she’s gone— and then throws a distressed look over her shoulder to the mother.
(1) Armour: Faulds — 1 Hit Prevention, Broken(2) Long Stride
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Post by Ulrich Ambriz on Dec 24, 2022 23:38:16 GMT -5
All it is, is dark. One second he was being dragged down into the swarm by one babehir— which he managed to successfully fling off of his jacket— and then all of a sudden he found himself in darkness. Not only that, there was the sensation that he was being pushed through a tube of slime.
It took him a few moments to realize the severity of his current situation. He'd just been eaten by Mama Behir! Not chewed up, but swallowed whole! And he was currently traveling down her esophagus to her gullet!
"Oh no... Ugh!" He gasped as he traveled further. He could feel the muscles in her neck tightening, coiling, working their food down into her stomach. "Of course you'd get yourself eaten, Ulrich! Just another day with your luck!"
He couldn't struggle much as the muscles tightly gripped around him. He could do nothing else but let himself travel further until he reached the Behir's stomach. This is a first for the bespectacled man... He's never been eaten by a monster before.
He soon reached the end of his travel down. Something opened up and he was pushed into a "chamber" which he could only assume was the stomach. I mean, what else could it be honestly? He plopped down into even more slimy, mucous substances. He needed to get out, and he needed to get out as soon as possible!
"Goddess in the heavens, what do I do now?!" He exclaims as he looks around himself.
He suddenly looks down to the Dagger on his hip, and he nods multiple times enthusiastically.
"Right! I'm not sure if that will have any effect on her, but we're definitely punching our way out of here!" He says as he balls his fist tightly.
Ulrich kneels down and chooses a spot. He closes his eyes and starts to breathe in and out slowly, rearing his fist back. The crackle and hiss of static electricity snap around him as streaks of blue light start to gather into his fist. Soon the intense, crackling light blue glow illuminates everything around him. He opens his eyes, blue streaks of electricity shooting forth from them. Then, an angry yell of effort rings out!
Mama Behir screeches to the skies in victory. Her little babehirs follow suit and screech alongside her. She's taken one of the little being out of the equation. She now turns her attention to the cart, seeing the rest of her children swarm and attack the other little snacks relentlessly. She charges forth towards the cart with another screech.
She closes the distance quickly, but then something happens that stops her in her tracks. It is a foreign sensation to her. A blue glow emanates from her mouth and she can feel the sting of electricity in her stomach! This electricity isn't hers! She rears up with a quick look to her stomach. A boom from within her stomach is heard, and she lurches forward with a cry of pain! The babehirs ceases their attack to look up at their mother quizzically. Another boom can be heard and streaks of the foreign lightning shoot out of her mouth into the sky as she screeches in pain.
Another BOOM! This time you could see her stomach distort from the outside from the impact of it! She screeches in pain again, but this time she vomits! Bile and whatever else you could think of flies through the air. Then she vomits out something whole. A certain unlucky mage that briefly found himself to be Behir food. The human soars through the air towards the cart and the others, landing a few yards away behind the cart.
She whimpers in pain, slowly dragging herself into the other direction, away from the cart. Her young forget about their assault on Astrid, Leni-Aura, and the cart. Joining back with their injured mother, they start to scurry away after her as they screech and squeal in defeat.
Ulrich lay there in the dirt on his side facing away from the cart. He was covered bile and slime... And he was unmoving. He was still, and it was not clear if he was unconscious or even worse...
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Dec 25, 2022 20:32:20 GMT -5
Astrid doesn't even have time to process what's just happened. There's too many nips at the ankles, too much chaos unfolding. She'll be no more help in the situation regarding Ulrich's disappearance if she needs to be saved too! This swarm is a lot to handle, but her first adventure was smashing bugs the same size as her, she can handle these leggy salamanders.
"No! They're just Pawn Models!" she shouts back to Leni. "No better at defendin' themselves than anyone else! Miss Veliky specifically wanted us ta protect 'em!" Another whack, another tiny squeal from a babehir. "Though I don't s'pose she imagined us runnin' into trouble like this of all thin's!"
The victorious screech from momhir snatches Astrid's attention, and she looks in that direction only to see the beast darting toward her and Leni. Its belly looks distended. Something is struggling inside. Wait, did it-
"IT ATE ULRICH?!"
True panic sets in with the realization, and Leni looks especially distressed. Of course, she does! The two of them seemed like good friends! A string of curses in dwarven thread their way together in Astrid's mind. They have to protect the cargo. But their friend, a living person, that's more important! With a tiny battle cry, Astrid charges through the mass of tiny behirs to reach Leni. "We gotta save him!!" Her destination? A battle of fisticuffs with something that will surely make hors d'oeuvres of her!
Her arm reels back, fully intending to throw her hammer at mamahir only for the creature to stop short. It looks confused. There's a dull thundering inside her gullet. Finally, a bolt of lightning blasts from her maw with another boom! Followed by- is that Ulrich? The slimy mage slides across the ground near her and Leni, and the behir mob makes its retreat with their defeated, injured mother.
"Oh gods! Ulrich!!"
Astrid rushes over and shakes him vigorously, hoping to bring him back to consciousness without whether or not he's actually unconscious. The bile and slime make it hard to grip his shoulders, but she doesn't fear slimy gross things.
At this rate, Leni's the last one who needs to get into a panic-the-rest-of-the-party situation.
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Post by Leni-Aura Thunderpaw on Dec 26, 2022 0:37:54 GMT -5
Leni-Aura grits her teeth as the air is filled with the cries of the Behir; behind her, even some of the Behir nearest to the cart tip their head back and screech at the sky, mimicking their mother’s victory cry.
She takes it as an insult.
Astrid’s stunned, panicked voice fills the air as Leni-Aura flips her spear around; lightning arcs from between the palm of her hands, flickering and reaching into the air around her like cobwebs. “Not for long.” Anger laces the edges of her tone, quivering the words as they escape her lips.
The fucking nerve of this...
Her ears pin back against her head when the mother Behir begins her charge towards the cart, and Leni-Aura braces her legs, preparing to charge forth to meet the massive beast head-on in what she can only believe is a fight to the death. There’s no way she can take this thing on, even with Astrid at her side— but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least try.
Her body tilts forwards, fixing to pounce forth, when…
THD.
Leni-Aura startles as a blue light flashes between the mother’s jagged teeth; the monster skids to a stop on its many legs, puzzled.
THD!!
Leni-Aura blinks, brows furrowing as the mother squirms, jerking with pain, and then— Leni-Aura bristles, scampering back a few steps as the massive Behir wretches forwards, losing all the contents of her stomach, including… “Ulrich!” Leni-Aura stumbles over his name, stunned; he was alive in there!?
He was alive, right?
Leni-Aura looks to where Ulrich lands, then at the mother Behir— but she's already retreating, and her babehirs seem to be taking the hint. "Tsk...!" She turns and bounds after the fallen mage, swinging the blunt of her spear at the retreating babehirs; a few of them seem like they want to skitter closer to Ulrich to try their luck as they pass, to which Leni-Aura stomps at them and hisses to, “Go! Get!” The babehirs scatter around her like water— squawking and hissing— until the little noodles are scuffling off into the distance after their retreating parent.
Astrid beats her to the mage in his questionable status; Leni-Aura goes skidding to a halt next to her and the fallen man. “Astrid, if you keep shaking him like that, you are going to snap his neck!” she warns, ears lowering slightly as she approaches to check on him. Nimbus whines on her shoulder, extending his wings in an attempt to jump off her shoulder to Ulrich— but Leni-Aura catches him in her arms before he can fall too far. "Ulrich?"
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Post by Ulrich Ambriz on Jan 1, 2023 16:35:00 GMT -5
Ulrich feels the vague sensation of being... shaken? He slowly regains his consciousness slowly until he can fully feel how crazily he's being shaken.
He starts to cough, and he slips from the hands of whoever had been shaking him incessantly.
"Ugh— whoa!" Is all he could blurt out before he dropped and hit his head on the ground, "...Ow..."
He lay there on his back still in a bit of a daze, but he could see that Astrid, Leni, and Nimbus were staring down at him.
Ah, that's g— WAIT! Where are the little scaly squigglies?!
He jumps up into a ready battle stance, but, the unlucky mage is slimy from his advenure... If you want to call it that. He slips back onto his side as there was a puddle of slime right where he was standing. It was quite comical, really.
"Wah! Oof!" He yelps as he somehow slides back towards the two women and baby drake. He had the mind to put on a goofy smile as he slid back towards them now upside down. "Oh, hello again you three. I see that the Big Bad Squiggly and her children have gone."
He throws a thumbs up gesture as he lays there. "Well done, everyone! ...I, uh, really need to get washed though. Yuck."
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Jan 1, 2023 16:54:51 GMT -5
When Ulrich wakes and slips out of Astrid's grip, she tries to grab him again, but he seems fine. He's just dazed. The girl lets out a heavy sigh and falls back on her knees, letting the anxiety of the moment wash away with another heavy breath. "A-Aye, they're gone... Mama thew ya right up, and they all left." She wipes her slimy gauntlets on the dirt, which only results in icky, static-charged mud caked in the joints. Astrid looks up at Leni with a relieved expression then finds the strength to stand again.
"Well... That all worked out, didn't it..?" she says with a half-smile. Looking down at Ulrich, the awesomeness of the moment finally kicks in. Her pose drops to be low as she goes absolutely ballistic over what they just experienced. "Ulrich, ya got eaten by a big salamander, and ya fought yer way out!! Holy moly! Yer incredible!! And ya both were just walkin' on air! And fightin' the little guys! The way ya just jumped inta action ta keep us all from gettin' eaten!" She lets out a fangirl scream. "AWESOME!!!"
This trip has been pretty wild, and through it all, the cart and BlixtbotsTM have just... continued to walk.
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Post by Leni-Aura Thunderpaw on Jan 1, 2023 18:44:22 GMT -5
A flurry of unintelligible halfling escapes Leni the moment Ulrich starts to cough in Astrid’s arms; her shoulders droop, and for a brief moment her expression softens. She shares a grateful glance with Astrid, albeit momentarily; but after flinching with the heavy thud that comes with Ulrich falling flat on his back again, she looks at him with furrowed brows— the softness gone from her expression. He looks up at them with the same goofy smile he always wears, upside down this time, and Leni can only stomp a foot just off to the edge of the puddle that’s formed around him. “ You…” she gets out, her frustration drowning most of the concern in her tone while she looks down at him with a huff. Before she can get anything else out, however, Astrid suddenly explodes into a flurry of excitement over what happened. Whatever else she might’ve been about to say dies in a puff of a sigh as Astrid begins to shriek right next to her. With the fight slipping from her over Ulrich being literally swallowed whole by an entire massive beast, Leni-Aura flattens her ears and crosses her arms, waiting for Astrid to finish screaming, before she rears back with the blunt of her spear.
There’s a soft, thnk! as she reaches forwards, and bops the haft across Ulrich’s forehead without much ferocity. She steps forwards to look down at him from above, seemingly not amused by the events. In contrast to Astrid's excitement, she sighs.
“I told you not to get eaten,” she objects, “You are just lucky that she forgot to chew.”
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Post by Ulrich Ambriz on Jan 1, 2023 21:06:11 GMT -5
A laugh escapes Ulrich as Astrid screams in excitement about the events that just transpired. Then he feels the all too familiar feeling of frustration emanating from the rabbitaur woman.
Oh boy, he was in for it now. He knew he'd messed up by getting eaten when she clearly told him not to. Well, could you blame him? You never know what might happen in battle.
All he can see is the blunt of Leni's spear as the haft of it bops him on the forehead. Her shadow looming over him as she blocked the light coming down from the stormy skies above.
"Well I—" She doesn't give him time to respond.
She tells him that he's lucky that he wasn't chewed. Hah, yeah, if you want to call getting eaten whole by a big monster lucky. Given his usual luck— he should be glad— and he will take that.
Ulrich gets himself up to standing position trying to get as much of the slime off of him as he possibly can.
"I was just trying to make sure you were safe," He says as he locks eyes with Leni, the he looks to Nimbus and Astrid, "All three of you."
He begins to remove his satchel and jacket. It's become heavy on his shoulders as he was drenched in slime.
"Ugh, this is not how I thought my day was going to go," he has a face of disgust as he flaps his jacket causing more slime to fly off of it. In the opposite direction of Leni, Astrid and Nimbus of course.
He looks down at to his soaked vest, and ponders for a moment. He quickly looks to his companions, then back to his vest, and then notices that the BlixtbotsTM and the cart are moving on without them.
"Oh," he says with a nervous chuckle, "We should probably catch up with the cart, huh?"
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Jan 1, 2023 23:49:36 GMT -5
Astrid finally calms down at least a little bit with things settling down. "I don't think any of us thought today was gonna go like this," Astrid says. The electricity still sparks off her armor and in her eyes hasn't settled, but she doesn't even notice it. Her hair still seems quite fried from being electrocuted. "Fer instance, if I tell Miss Veliky that in the span of a few hours on this mission she gave me that I got struck by lightnin' an' ya got eaten by a... whatever that big leggy salamander was... Well, I don't think she'd have thought that would happen. I didn't think it was!"
Despite these developments, she's still in great spirits. Sure, her armor's a bit dinged up with some tiny teeth marks, but overall, she's alright. Following Ulrich's gaze, she looks over to see the cart continuing along. "Ah, we should keep up with that!" She slips her hammer back into the loop on her belt and takes off running after the cart. "Oi, slow down, would ya!? Ulrich's out here gettin' eaten by monsters, and yer still just goin' about yer business, ain't ya??"
One of the bots looks back at Astrid as she runs up, their emotionless eyes observing the banged-up girl then looks past at the adults before focusing on her again. "Conscript Astrid, report: Per Mistress Veliky, these units' prerogative is ensuring the cargo reaches the border of Frost Gale. Analysis: Continuing progress will ensure success regardless of the escorts' health signals. Additional analysis: Escorts all appear to be in good condition. Report: These units will continue to progress." Then its head turns back to look forward, and its march continues on.
Astrid huffs a bit, but she supposes they're not wrong. The cart is alright, so are the bots, and none of her new friends are seriously injured, so she looks back at them as she crawls up on the cart for the rest of the journey. "Come on, slow pokes! We got a ways left ta go!"
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The Expedition
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Post by Leni-Aura Thunderpaw on Jan 2, 2023 1:36:35 GMT -5
Leni-Aura looks off to the side at Astrid, breathing a slight huff as she points out that the randomness of the day couldn’t be predicted… but while that’s true, and while it’s not as if Ulrich chose to be swallowed whole by a mother Behir… she’s still frustrated about the fright he’d given her when he disappeared. She purses her lips, unable to process her mixed emotions well; but the frustration, easily recognizable, lingers most at the forefront. " Tsk." She can’t really argue with Astrid’s point, though; so brows furrowed slightly, Leni-Aura huffs in defeat and steps back to give Ulrich room. The blunt of her spear thrums against the earth as she meets his gaze— —and her face darkens a shade when Ulrich defends himself; she has every intent to object and rant about how much she can take care of herself— but then he continues; and every insult dies on her tongue. Leni-Aura looks away, flustered over her own misunderstanding, and uses every ounce of her self-control not to sprint off after the cart. Nimbus chirrups on her shoulder, watching Ulrich fan out the slime from his jacket curiously. Still, she can no longer meet Astrid or Ulrich’s eyes, and so she takes a steady breath, instead— only looking after Astrid when the girl has sprinted off towards the cart. She moves after her to follow, pausing only to offer Ulrich a hesitant passing glance. “ There are four of us here.” She corrects his last statement quietly with a hard-to-read tone to her voice. It could be easier to tell him to be careful, or to watch out for himself— but words like that don’t come easily.
After turning just enough to briefly meet his gaze, she turns and bounds off after Astrid to join her on the cart without offering him another comment.
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The Expedition
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"Ulrich, you will have to let go of what you loved then to protect the things you love now."
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Post by Ulrich Ambriz on Jan 16, 2023 15:40:33 GMT -5
Ulrich watches as Leni bounds off towards the cart after Astrid. A bit of a puzzled expression on his face as he fans out even more slime off of his jacket.
There are four of us here? What does she mean by that?
Hmmm, that is quite a curious thing to say, indeed.
In any case, we'll just have to finish this mission first and foremost. Preferably without having to fight off any more danger like Behirs.
He inspects his still damp jacket. He'd gotten most of the slime off, and that's about as good as it was going to get. With an exasperated sigh, he folds it and slings over his shoulder. Preferring to do this instead wearing it again before getting his clothes washed. Gods, he needed a bath.
He turns to start jogging towards the cart to join back with the others. The thought of what Leni said was still replaying in his mind.
Four not three? When did we gain a fourth person?
Maybe she meant something else rather than someone else?
Ulrich shrugs his shoulders as he slowly catches up with the cart. He shakes his head as he's a bit uncomfortable with the fact that his clothes are damp from the slime that is slowly drying up on his body.
"Ugh, the first thing I'm doing when we get the chance, is taking a nice long bath."
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