Every Dream Filled With Hell From Beyond | Closed

[steadypulse]

Who: Soldier: 76 & Various
Which: Closed/Planned Threads Catch-All
Where: Dreamscape | Cave within the Wildlands | TBA
What: Dreamboard Task #102 | A trip to a cave containing the Glowing Dawn Flowers goes very wrong.
Warnings: Violence, strong language, will warn for anything else | Very likely some gorey body horror once threads for the cave filled with "ent"-looking creatures gets going. Will add warning there when hit.

Starters will go below! Feel free to get in touch with me to get something arranged to go in here if wanted.


(OOC: For something planned outside of mini-events this month, PM or hmu in the game discord.)

Comments

[shithogs]

What a pal— she'll definitely have to keep that offer in mind. She's always preferred a more straightforward approach, but hell, if the Noctaere are going to use whatever advantage they can get their claws on, why shouldn't they do the same?

He ducks down, and she wedges her blade against the wall to keep it clear of both of them before she braces her hands against the tunnel on either side so that she can vault herself over him— easily managed, when he's down that low, except—

"What?"

She looks over her shoulder at him as she lands on her feet with a hard thud, reaching to pull her sword free.

"What the hell does that mean?"

... she can figure it out from the context, but she's never heard anyone talk like that before.

[steadypulse]

Oh. Right. He only straightened up a bit once she was over and the weapon was pulled free- Knew better than to move too soon around swords and the like.

"It's a slang term, quick way to say stay alert and ready for action. Picked it up during my time in the military," and of course it was used elsewhere. Video games liked to use it a lot, anything that had any form of military existing. Spread out further than that, too.

"Habit."

One that was coming back the more he ended up working with other people at that. An ear twitched as he caught the sound of movement ahead- almost like the ground was splitting apart just beyond their sight. Rumblings of movement.

[shithogs]

"Weird."

She gives his explanation the bare minimum response, shrugging it off before she turns to face forward again. Sure, whatever floats his boat— she might have ribbed him about it a little, if the sounds up ahead hadn't drawn and held her attention.

They have bigger shit to deal with at the moment.

She holds a hand up to indicate that he should wait a moment as she moves forward, at least long enough to give her some space to move freely, and she hefts her blade as she rounds the bend just in time to come across the Noctaere itself as it lets out another peal of that horrible, grating laughter.

Well. Not like the element of surprise had been on their side to begin with— this thing has been playing with them all along.

"Hey, shitbag! What's so funny?!" And, having grabbed its attention, she grins sharply as she lunges forward, swinging her blade in an upward arc as she attacks without hesitation.

Tactics, unfortunately, aren't really her thing.

[steadypulse]

The Noctaere was practically cackling, a few stones vibrating with the noise, earth shifting near it as if it was more fluid than solid. Eyes glowed from the dark spot that showed eyes, and it was clear any other bit of face was hidden by dark and light stone that made up it's skin like armor. No wonder this thing probably had an easy time tunneling- and good thing it was trapped within dream-dreams or no doubt it could cause havoc elsewhere.

The lunge no surprise either. 76 didn't mind at all passing the lead to Kainé, giving her room with that sword as shadows wrapped around hands like sharp clawed gauntlets and even around digitigrade lower legs for the same. Get all the grip he could when he finally moved from the tunnel out in to the open.

If this thing was earth and soil- could that mean...?

76 swung himself to the side and practically pitched a ball of bright blue electricity at the Noctaere as it started to move in to the ground as if to avoid the swing of the blade. Caused the thing to freeze up and take at least most of that swing before flinging back.

There was the muffled sound of glass breaking as it moved again- "I might be able to help slow that fucker down enough for you to get some solid hits!" There was sand mixed in there with whatever else this nightmare creature was made out of. For however long it had any, he could attempt it.

Reckless was something he was good at, for better or worse. Quick on his feet, too.

[shithogs]

Fortunately for both of them, ‘quick’ and ‘reckless’ are two things they have in common.

“Give it your best shot, old man!” Anything he can do to slow it down, she’s more than willing to take— the fact that it’s big and heavy means they already have a speed advantage here, but while she’s still plenty strong, she’s lost a little of her inhuman strength since finding her way to this world. She’s still plenty confident that she can crack through that armor, but she’s learned that she doesn’t have to try quite so hard to refuse help, especially not here.

The Noctaere strikes, aiming for Kainé thanks to her being in close quarters; she very narrowly manages to dodge, rolling out of the way before she hefts her blade and swings it towards what pass for legs, the strike of serrated metal against hard stone high-pitched and dissonant.

“Asshole is made of rocks, we can use that weight against him!”

Always press the advantage, however small it might seem. She’s sure this shithead has a lot more up his non-existent sleeves than just heavy armor and solid punches, anyway.

[steadypulse]

He was very much adaptable when it came to fighting with others, which honestly was helpful in a place like this. 76 could fall back and pick where he could best compliment whomever he ended up with, pick up to better have their back and follow someone's lead as easily as he could take it when necessary. Made for a decent soldier.

Electricity was crackling around those solid shadow clawed gauntlets even as he moved around- "Bigger they are, harder they'll fall!"

Always worked, just had to sometimes find that center of gravity to get the best place to strike and knock them down. However that ended up being. He was pelting electricity, even getting them to curve and doing whatever he could to split the Noctaere's attention between the two of them; when it went for her he lit it up. When it went for him all the better to open an attack for her.

There was a moment he suddenly felt his foot catch in to something, nearly twisting it as he stopped in time, "Fuck—

"Ground is changing, watch your footing!"

It was solid rock wrapped around his leg and could feel it trying to pull him down as if that part of the soil had suddenly gone liquid. Took a few punches to break through that rock and get away. The damned thing cackling again even while taking hits.

[shithogs]

For a good few moments, it works— the Noctaere's attention is divided, unable to decide on which of them it should go after, and the oncoming barrage of electricity gives Kainé plenty of opportunity to get in close and circle around to try and pinpoint where best to strike to send this guy tumbling to the ground. It's a solid effort, until the Noctaere decides that rather than decide, it's going to go after both of them while shifting the ground beneath, cackling all the while as though they were assaulting it with nothing more threatening than feathers.

"Shit—!"

Kainé, too, feels herself being grabbed by the ground itself, heels sinking deep into what feels like quicksand even as the earth calcifies around her ankles. She manages to pull one foot free, having to pry the other loose with her sword before stumbling forward, letting out a low growl as she regains herself.

"Cheap trick! That's only gonna work once, shitlord!"

She lunges, hefting her sword overhead to bring it down firmly against the Noctaere's back, hard enough that she hopes to at least crack its armor.

[steadypulse]

Crack the armor did- as did one of the walls somewhere within the cavern they'd entered in to. Loud enough that 76's ears pricked at the noise, eyes narrowing a bit-

"Keep going hard!" It could have been a trick, this thing throwing noise or it was threatening to bury them under rock and rubble just for hitting it. Either way? It needed to- "Need to take this fucker down fast if that wasn't just the noise off of it echoing around us!"

Might not have been a cavern wall cracking, because even the thought of being buried under stone rubble brought back memories he'd rather forget; that he had to push back to the furthest point of his mind to keep focused. This was a dream, a nightmare, not somewhere back at the fallen Swiss HQ as a much younger man at the end of his rope.

If nothing else? It meant that 76 was packing more power behind the electrically charged pitches, only risking that in knowing the creature was grounding and it wouldn't risk cross over to Kainé.

[shithogs]

"Only way I know how to go, old man!"

Even with the challenge ahead of them, Kainé is grinning as she continues her assault; their surroundings being structurally sound may be in question, but shit, it's a dreamscape, isn't it? Can't let it get into their heads more than it already has, can't let the fear of what might happen keep them from getting the job done.

They can do this.

Those charged shots help keep the creature's attention; it swings for Kainé blindly with one arm before turning to lumber towards 76 to retaliate, leaving her an opening to attack again and wedge her blade into where the armor had cracked, prying it open and using her strength to force some of it to fall away.

"If I get it's attention, think you can nail it from behind, grandpa?!"

The Noctaere lets out another shrieking cackle, a pained edge to it rather than merely taunting. They're definitely making headway.