Roleplay: Whispers and Nightmares - Part 4

The following is a role play scenario done on Skype between myself and some friends. In a document it is 32 pages long, so between late night typos and formatting the posts it has taken some time to put together.

This side story will be the next few updates till completed, in the mean time I have been working on some artwork for future posts and am awaiting some information before posting information on ZED. So I present to you... Whispers and Nightmares - Part 4 (the next 4 pages).

The conclusion post will be quite long, so I hope you are all ready!

Please keep in mind that each paragraph was made by someone in the group so the writing styles are a bit different. To make it slightly easier to distinguish different writers they have been color coded.

Whispers and Nightmares
Part 4

Fare's head snaps over to the sound of the voice, the burn damage on her face pretty marked, but her arm a shoulder area was in quite rough shape. Shakily she grabs for her dagger, shadow stepping to pick up the other one. She watches on silently.

The norn does not move for a bit, breathing heavily. She yanks the dagger out of the Gaalla-clone and spins around in a terrifyingly fast pace. She hurls the knife straight for the non-metal shoulder of the asura. She had no intent to kill them, oh no. They were going to be brought back alive. No one ever said the asura needed to be in good condition, however.

A female asura was a few feet behind him she was pale, white with a slight eye patch of a darker color. Her hair up in a pair of buns, a tinted light brown shade "They did quite well."

The asura doesn't even move. A magnetic field suddenly generates around him sending the dagger right back at Sanyja as he kept his smirk "What? You think I'm easy like all of our failed experiments? Come come now. Show some pride and estimation."

There was a quaint laugh from the female "Now now husband, they did just witness the deaths of their friends." she quickly raised a hand and lowered it as a blood fiend appeared behind her.

Farellynn pulled herself to her full height looking on, fury rampant in her violet pools, "So you're the little shits they sent me in here for..." She said coldly, still trembling, she gripped her daggers so tightly the leather of what was left of her gloves gave off a sound as the rubbed between her hands and the hilts.

Well, Sanyja was not expecting that. The dagger slammed into her shoulder, but the norn did not flinch, move, or show any sign of pain. She rips out the dagger, violet eyes narrowed upon the two asura. " 'Member leaf, we needs 'em alive. Dat dun means we ain' allowed t' smack 'em up. S'long as dey can speaks. Break e'ry udder bone fer all I care." Said the norn, hissing out the words.

"Who is they? Hmn, surely you can't actually have business with us - though you did do better than the rest."

Fare could stand simply to hear no more, she moved toward the two asura, daggers gripped tightly, they could bleed a little without dying right? She narrowed her eyes on the woman, something about the pair really unnerved her.

"Im sorry norn. I can't understand a damn word you say. Please speak clearly. Oh wait. You cant. You suffered brain damage. Try drunking yourself and you may speak clearly." A zap of lightning hits the asura as he teleports right in front of Fare. He opens his mouth as a breathe of fire emits directly at her.

Sanyja rolled her eyes at the asura. Hey, if they can't understand her this could actually work out well.

The female asura stood in the back as she summoned a dark pool around the ground grasping at the sylvari and norn to hold them still.

Sanyja sighed. The norn disappeared in a snap of thunder, sliding backwards across the floor. Lightning reflexes, both literal and skill wise.  She snatches up her pouch of explosive goodies,  yanking out a flash bang grenade. The norn springs forward, hurling one at the asura woman while turning around to pull out her last pistol. Magnum, six rounds. She aims for the little asuran woman, shielding her eyes and waiting for a clear shot.

The fleshbeast fetched the the flash bang in it's apparent mouth - almost like a dog after a ball as the asuran woman jerked her hand to the left summoning another beast for protection.

Fare doesn't take notice of this until just a touch to late, fire making a brushing contact with her skin as she made the step behind the asura, little whimpers of pain mixed in with labored breaths, the step itself was sloppy and not terribly impressive just from on side of the asura too the other where she was netted by the dark pool. Her single minded fury once more her downfall until she could plot escape.

Turns quickly to Farellynn raising his right hand as a jet of cold ice escapes his palm at her attempting to freeze her over. He then places both hands straight out to her with a smirk increasing the cold build up as if trying to freeze her completely now.

In a last ditch attempt to do something anything the ashen sylvari pulls one of the pistols off her belt firing blindly behind her hopefully to hit him at point blank or at least startle him. The freezing was just as painful as the immense amount of burns she had obtained during this adventure.

The grenade goes off in the annoying flesh-thing's mouth. Not much happens, seeing as the flash bang was mostly stuck inside the mouth. Smoke did escape though, and t he grenade did make quite the high pitched shriek-noise. Sanyja sighed, aiming the pistol now for the flesh beast. She unloads all six rounds, and decides this shit is annoying. She dips down low, trying to weave around all the clutter and chaos. The norn pulls out a dart gun, visibly loaded with six darts. Tranquilizer darts. She fires two at the asuran woman.

The flesh beast explodes in a lovely array of guts, blood, ooze and smoke from the flash bomb it had just inhaled. The tendrils land on San as they twitch and die off...

The new beast the asuran woman summoned moved in the way of the darts falling on it's face quickly as she frowned at it "Hmph, resorting to passive tatics now?" she pointed at San making a fist as she would start to life drain.

"Soon you will be frozen and taken as subject." He replied as he continued to just freeze her. As she pulled out her pistol and aims firing blindly he makes himself explode using arcane energy. A sickening splatter is heard soon after he does so as the bullet passes right through his head and falls straight to the ground on his back laying motionless. The bullet missed his plating.

The asuran woman shouted out "ORIN!" as she lost concentration quickly moving to his motionless body.

Thank god that life-drain bullshit got interrupted. The norn attempts to fire the four remaining tranq darts into the back of the asuran female. Fuck that shit. Sanyja had every intention of drugging the woman for an entire year. She looked to Fare, motioning with her head to snatch up the woman asura. Whether or not the darts hit, Fare could definitely club the bitch upside the head.

The asuran woman was holding onto her dead husband now, crying, there would be a rather sick familiarity about her that Fare might not be able to ping. She looked up at San and Fare her blue eyes with a piercing hatred as she was hit with the darts soon passing out holding Orin...

Farellynn just remained on her hands and knees shaking violently, breaths heavy and ragged as she stared at the floor a moment before giving a nod pushing herself to her feet, moving with marked speed toward the asuran woman, she leaned down pulling the woman up from the dead body, swaying a bit as she looked over to Sanyja.

Orin continues to lay motionless. The red hair bristled slightly from the mess of the landing as the pool of blood spills out slowly on the ground. His skin was just slightly darker from the other asura as well.

Sanyja moves over to Fare, snatching up her burnt up coat as well as the explosive bag. She motions for the leaf to hand over the drugged midget, and hands Fare a bag of explosives. "Thar be charges inside. Set t' time fer seven minutes. Put a chargey on each 'o dem walls 'ere. Den toss one done e'ry new section 'o lab we pass through until we gets outside. I wan' dis whore house 'o life creations buried beneath da rubble."

Fare shrugs, "We need to take some of this out with us... they expressly asked for me to bring back things for continued research..." her voice is very very empty as she speaks, not really having anything left to give for the day. She just wanted to go home, even if everyone was going to yell at her and tell her she was stupid and inconsiderate. Maybe they were right, maybe not. She looked down to the corpse, "The said two asura..." She leaned down to pull the other over her shoulder, having handed of the woman to San. She slowly moved over to the walls leaning to support the weight of the slender asura as she began to set the charges, she really didn't feel like arguing with Sanyja right this instant.

The female asura remained limp as the other fiend made a violent twitch from the tranq darts and then resumed to being motionless.

Sanyja spun around, violet eyes narrowing on the fiend. She sighs, taking out an explosive grenade. She tied a string to the pin, and stuffed said grenade underneath the sleeping beasty. "Oi, lemme know when ye done so I can melt dis sack 'o rottin' sheit."

Farellynn just moved about the room, setting the charges, not saying much, not doing much extra. Eventually she nodded to Sanyja and began to head out of the room "Seven minutes... Let's get outta here."

The norn nodded, walking away with string in hand. Eventually the distance pulled the pin of the grenade. Four seconds later it would go off. Sanyja began to job a bit, beckoning Fare to move fast. "If ye see anyt'in wurf snatchin' ups, do ets. I dunno wots dey wants frum dis wack farm. Dey only tolds me t' bring back dem chief nutters." She mutters, now moving through the long, long hallway.

Fare did her best to move fast, shuffling along with greater speed now. When the adrenaline of battle wore off she would pay dearly for the entire thing. Until then it was time to get the hell out of dodge. The ashen sylvari couldn't wait to be out of this place... She hated tunnels and caves, and canyons...

Upon exiting the cave and tunnels it was still dark outside, though it was apparent that it had rained since they entered and the ground was damp with fresh rain though it had stopped raining... The time was late - very late - dawn would be upon them in an hour or so.

"So...Where we be s'posed t' drop off Doctah Wack and Nurse Nutter?" She huffed, quite tempted to stab the female asura with more tranq darts. In fact, the norn thought this a WONDERFUL idea. She reached into the gun bag, pulling out two more tranq darts. She yanked off the tip casing with her teeth, spitting it out to the side, and then stabbed the asura in the back with the darts. Yep, drugged for a whole year.

Fare wished to put as much distance as possible between her and that hell hole, the male still draped dead over her shoulder, "I was assuming they'd have someone to take them off our hands..."

The female asura was out... definately out for a while - considering the tranqs were probably made for someone up to the size of a norn...

"Next best guess? The chantry."

"Tch...Figures...Aight. Better haul ass. Dunno wot else might creeps out. Plus, we ain' got mooch mur den...'Boot a gud two mins till da place be up in smokes." The norn nodded, trotting off...Somewhere? Fuck, probably in the direction of the Chantry.

Fare followed along, they had better be happy with her now. She was not going out on anything Inquest related for a long long time. In fact she hoped the inquest would just go die in a hole somewhere. She'd had more than enough of them. To the Chantry they headed...

Behind them the explosions went off, they could hear the caves falling in behind them...

[ To be continued...]

Roleplay: Whispers and Nightmares - Part 3

The following is a role play scenario done on Skype between myself and some friends. In a document it is 32 pages long, so between late night typos and formatting the posts it has taken some time to put together.

This side story will be the next few updates till completed, in the mean time I have been working on some artwork for future posts and am awaiting some information before posting information on ZED. So I present to you... Whispers and Nightmares - Part 3 (the next 4  pages).

The next two posts will be in strange lengths the conclusion will be the longest. I hope you all have enjoyed the story so far!

Please keep in mind that each paragraph was made by someone in the group so the writing styles are a bit different. To make it slightly easier to distinguish different writers they have been color coded.

Whispers and Nightmares
Part 3

 

Fare watched it coldly for a moment before pushing past Sanyja, daggers in hand already. No one especially not some kind of, well whatever it was, slandered her name like that. Whatever this no eyed thing was it was toast. She shadow stepped to close the distance practically close enough to hug the creature, and she did try to... with her daggers, one aiming for the every squishy neck bit, and the other aiming to drive from the other side down into the skull.

As Farellynn attacked the... Farellynn clone, the red tube spilled open - a large dark charr, red veins covering him pulsating almost like molten in his body. He looked to Farellynn - the real one "Violence is not needed..."

The norn blinked, about to protest until Fare moved like a bat out of hell. The norn stuffed the flash bangs away, and pulled that amazingly large rifle off her back. The norn aimed for the charr, "Eat sheit an' die, feckin' travesty t' life!" She yelled, pressing the trigger twice. Fuck that noise, the norn had seen enough abominations in one lab.

The holes blew right through the Charr leaving two rather large holes in his chest... Molten lava started to seep out of the holes soon rejuvenating the holes as he looked to San.

The sylvari abomination takes the hits completely. Daggers slitting right through the throat and head as it suffers the kills. It leans forward as if dead and falling but then suddenly bursts into the silver blood compound drenching Farellynn's coat as it begins to heat and sizzle up.

"Farellynn, don't you recognize me?" the charr said, the charr which looked like Iron minus the lack of eyes and strange... molten regeneration...

Farellynn was busy trying to peel off her travesty of a coat. She knew there was a reason she hadn't been wearing any of her nice once. She ran her dagger over the buttons popping them all off and dropped the coat to the ground, fortunately the anti-nakedness sylvari had a shirt on, she whipped around to look at the charr behind her, now they were just trying to fuck with her. She lunged forward again, trying to stab at the Iron look alike. Her movements growing frantic, she worried what would come next.

Sanyja cursed, flinging back the rifle over her shoulder. This time she pulled out three grenades. Chemical grenades, filled with some form of acid. She hurled one, then another, then another at the charr. "Get t' heck back, ye rash leaf!" She growled, pulling out a pistol. A magnum like the ones she handed Fare. Sanyja aimed for the charr's head.

The grenades were enough to off the molten charr look-alike of Iron, his head exploded as his body started to melt into the silver sizzling liquid like the imitation Farellynn, a silver boiling puddle.

The ashen sylvari lept back stomach turning at the thought of what was in the other test tubes. She looked to Sanyja a moment swallowing hard, before staring back at them, how much did these inquest know about the group?

The pink tube busts open and spills as the figure rolls out landing on its feet. This one looked exactly just like Rorshak. The only difference was no eyes and a metal left arm. He was wearing a coat with matching dark pants and boots. He reaches his right hand to the yellow tube as it shatters open "Come! Come to me!"

As the tube broke open there was a figure looking like Aurora. Her lower stomach seeming to be partially missing her hip bone could be seen as metal and her hands covered in metal in turn - as well lacking eyes.

Looks like she was about to throw up. No way this was happening not now, not here. Fare's next movements were almost unbelievably quick as she shadow steps towards the eyeless Rorshak and Aurora, both daggers drawn and the leaf lets forth a pained noise as she attempts to stab the both of them. Her movements frantic and filled with malice, Farelynn could hardly hear anything going on around her tunnel vision setting in. She would be hard pressed to let those Inquest live when she found them.

Rorshak receiving some of the stabs rolls backwards as he seemed to be quite nimble. Several cuts were made from her attacks as he had a mixture of silver and red blood. His hands motion out directly to Farellynn as he casts Life leech attempting to heal himself using Farellynn's own health.

Aurora taking several deep gashes across her chest there was almost a sound of someone crying, a child as she bled  but said no words.

Fare's entire body trembled as she pressed forward toward the eyeless Rorshak face not showing anything as she simply let him leech from her. It wouldn't take her long to close the gap again, shadow stepping up to meet him she reached out to grab at the collar of the creature the other hand with dagger trying to punch through his face.

Sanyja aimed the pistol at the Rory-clone's head. She pulled the trigger three times quickly, then refocused upon his chest. Three more bullets flew. The norn tossed the pistol aside, grabbing another one from her handy-dandy gun bag. This time she aimed at Aurora. The same pattern was followed as the Rory-clone. It did not matter if it killed them, for Fare surely would. The norn did not doubt this, and frowned deeply. This mission just became immensely personal for Fare, and Sanyja knew just how much this pained the leaf.

The bullets landing square on along with both the dagger going through his face. The shots to his chest jetting right on through as he also bursts into the substance. This one wasnt as lethal however due to the mix of silver and blood. The orange tube by then bursts open aswell as the figure lands square on the face. It doesn't move at all seeming to be norn. A very large norn.

Fare turns her attention to the clone of Aurora, and she steps back to it Orrian dagger clutched in her gloved hand, her free hand moving to repeat the same actions, grab, however this time it wasn't just a single stab, she stabbed and brought her hand back up and repeated the action several times very quickly if allowed too.

The Aurora clone didn't retaliate she simply spoke "W-what have you done...?" as she was shot and slaughtered - there was cries of a baby as she looked down to her stomach - there obviously nothing as she collapsed into a silver puddle of ooze.

Fare ran her hand through her leafy petals, drawing in ragged breaths as she watches on a moment. The ashen sylvari trembling with a mixture of rage and fear, dagger still clutched desperately in her fingers.

Sanyja's brow rose, tossing aside the other empty pistol. The norn pulled out two more chemical grenades, the last two she had. Her violet eyes narrowed at the norn-like figure. Without words, the grenades were hurled fiercely like stones at the abomination. The norn pulled out another pistol, aiming for the norn's head. She looked to Fare briefly, a sad look in her eyes while frowning. San's facial expression were hid beneath her hooded mask.

The blue tube broke as well; as a lovely human female came out of it, her hair golden and her figure perfect, spare the fact that she was covered in stitches and patches of flesh, her eyes dark sockets and missing.

The norn quickly lifts himself up. Catching only one grenade and hurls it right back at Sanyja. The other lands right on the norn as he stood up baking away at his armor chassis which was eating through to holes. He was rather massive and reaches behind himself pulling out a large hunk of metal almost like a club with both hands. "I am Frostbite! ..And you will feel the wrath for The Rag-tag Wanderers!" He spins in circles hurtling straight towards Sanyja.

Fare snapped her head up to the sound of the blue tube shattering, there were tears on her ashen face as she watched on a moment, taking her second dagger into hand, she had seen just about enough of these sad excuses for life.

The female human clone seemed to amass a great sword out of the oozy silver metal it hissed and burned but didn't seem to burn her, perhaps due to being of the same material. She readied it to fight.

Farellynn gave a dark snicker, as she moved to cross toward the eyeless woman, pace starting slow and even breaking out to nearly a run just a few short steps in, she moves to shadow step behind the woman, and if allowed would attempt to wrap garrotte wire around her neck with a single hand, Orrian dagger still clutched in the other... the second dagger clattering to the ground where she shadow stepped from.

Leyora - the human clone would reach over her shoulder her nails digging into Fare's shoulder as she was garotted as she struggled to get free, her nails melting into the silver burning ooze.

Sanyja ducks, weaving right a bit. The grenade bursts behind her, acidic chemical hissing and snarling against the walls. She shakes her head, unloading all six rounds at the norn's chest. The woman does not even care if they hit, tossing the pistol aside furiously. She yanks back that huge freaking rifle, planning to slam the barrel right up against the norn's head. So Sanyja charged right back at the spinning fool, ducking low with the rifle and then attempted to bash his chin in with the nozzle. If that was a hit, she would pull the trigger all four times.

The leaf did not shy away from the pain only pulling the wire tighter and tighter in order to cut into the woman's neck. Her other hand still clutched the dagger, though she made no move to stab getting some sick sense of satisfaction from choking the woman. She was eventually pulling hard enough that it would start to cut into her leather glove.

Leyora's head would swell and grow larger popping like a balloon spraying Fare in the burning silver goo. The hand over on Fare's shoulder would liquidate down starting to burn through her armor.

All her attacks make contact as glass shatters from the white tube. The norn throws the metal club aside from the hits and as the shots hits through his chin explodes into the silver compound. Sanyja would feel her life start to drain away slowly as an Asura seemingly seem to be doing this. "Best friends always drain one another!" Spoke the Asura as it was the clone of Gaalla.The difference was metal legs and no enhancements to her pads or hands with her grin and no eyes. Some stitching showed on her brow.

The leaf jumped back howling in pain now, she made to cut off what fabric was touched by the silver goop. The leaf clutched at her face as she peeled away the fabric with her free hand. her dagger clattering to the ground beside her as she tried to get all of that nasty burny shit off.

Sanyja groans a bit, spinning away. She quickly throws down her bags, and tosses off her coat. Luckily, seems like the ammo was fine. Her jacket...Pretty much ruined. The whole life-leeching business was not amusing Sanyja. It felt like being burned form the inside out. With immense determination and one hell of an angry look in her eyes, literally charged at the Gaalla-clone. She would attempt to punt the little piece of crap, followed by a jaw shattering punch. The norn did not even see if they hit, left hand dipping behind her back to pull out a throwing knife. Sanyja attempted to drive the blade right into the clone's skull. Right between the eyes.

Once more all the connections made as the kick, punch, and sword make their marks impaling the Gaalla. She doesn't explode however and just leaks out pure blood. Twitching on the blade she speaks "I... I was.. your friend.. though..." Before falling silent and lifeless "Bravo murderers! Bravo! A testimate to kill your own trusted!" Spoke a male as he steps into the room. Asura with red fiery hair and a metal covering over half of his face. His right arm metallic along with his left leg. He had huge ears and bright red eyes giving a bit of a proud smirk. He was rather tall almost four feet but seemed a bit thin "Well played of course."

[ To be continued...]

Roleplay: Whispers and Nightmares - Part 2

The following is a role play scenario done on Skype between myself and some friends. In a document it is 32 pages long, so between late night typos and formatting the posts it has taken some time to put together.

This side story will be the next few updates till completed, in the mean time I have been working on some artwork for future posts and am awaiting some information before posting information on ZED. So I present to you... Whispers and Nightmares - Part 2 (the next 6  pages).

Please keep in mind that each paragraph was made by someone in the group so the writing styles are a bit different. To make it slightly easier to distinguish different writers they have been color coded.

Whispers and Nightmares
Part 2

 

The ashen sylvari takes pause peering into the darkness, that was never a good sound. Grinding anything was bad and with the doors shut she could only assume one thing. /Something/ was coming to crush her, but, no explosion? Now she was seriously concerned. Quickly she makes her way back toward the golem the least she could do would be to collect her weapons, she'd need them if she made it out of this place and into the next room. She booked it through the darkness as fast as she could.

As she returned back to get her weapon she noticed a rather large doorway opened. It was big. Almost about three norns tall as a strange two legged creature comes through. A gigantic Skritt. It holds its large Zwihander with two hands and grins broadly as the entire lab then shakes twice. The Skritt blinks in confusion and glances back as it screams. The stone wall falls and crushes it as something even LARGER comes tromping in over the fallen wall.

Farellynn drops her shoulders a bit as she scrambles to pick up her weapons, knocking an arrow in quick succession and just blindly firing at whatever it was. The thing just felled a wall, she was not waiting for it to make the first move.

The creature had trouble getting through the door it blocking the light entirely as it wiggled through the door making a heavy cOOOooooooing sound as it finally managed to get through, it was round, bit... And a dark shade of blue... Blue like that of the water or something that would dwell in it - as it coOOOoooed again this time fire breathing from it's lips across the room.

Farellynn darted off to the side returning the bow to her back it was...it was a fire breathing quaggan?! Nope, not happening, not on her watch. Having both her daggers in hand she made for the creature attempting to shadow step onto or almost onto it's back to dig her weapons into it. As though using picks to climb a mountain.

The giant, yes - fire breathing quaggan made a high pitched, very painful scream as it felt Fare digging her daggers into it as the quaggan quickly rolled onto the ground to try and squish Fare off of it's back, it's tail slamming on the ground.

She was not really expecting the quaggan to roll especially not so quickly, and was forcibly slammed into the ground below, her hands slipped from her daggers which would remain in the quaggan. The ashen sylvari lay on the ground trying to reorient herself, trying to get her body to move, but alas it was taking its own sweet time. She attempted to collect her thoughts and figure out what exactly was going on around her.

Sanyja was late. Better late then never, though. The norn had stopped to pick up a variet of weaponry. She had with her a massive rifle, the size of the norn herself. The rifle was clearly designed to punch holes into something huge. Dragon perhaps? Who knew. Sanyja also had two pistols, a sword, a normal size sniper rifle, as well as a variety of explosive goodies. She was quite informed of what the heck this particular Inquest lab was housing. No chances today. She felt the shaking of the entire complex, and it only spurred her to move faster.

The norn finally made her way into the room which the cause of the shaking seemed to be. A giant...Quaggan? The he- No time for contemplation. In absolute display of speed and power, the norn hoisted the huge anti-tank style rifle into a 45 degree angle. Where was Fare? No time to think. Only time to annihilate. Sanyja held down the trigger, unleashing all four huge projectiles at the quagganzilla thing. Not even taking a chance, the norn ejected the cases and began to load four more rounds. Yep, gonna turn that quaggan into a pile of mush.

The quaggan screamed again with the yell of utter ear bursting pain... It glared at the norn seeing where the shots had come from. It opened it's mouth letting out a huge wave of fire it's tail smashing around behind it - barely missing Fare. The injuries on the quaggan oozed a green goo mixed with a silver shimmer to it - clearly abnormal... If a giant fire breathing quaggan wasn't irregular already...

Farellynn heard the shots ring out, she recognized the sound immediately that was the sound of divine intervention. The only reason she'd made it through her last Inquest adventure. Still trying to focus, Fare at least tried to pull herself out of the way of the smashing tail. She scrambled on her hands and knees to put distance between her and the quaggan.

In the light of the fire Fare might see runes along the quaggan, and the word "Cuddles" etched into it's skin like a collar.

Sanyja gave that quaggan the biggest 'fuck you' look in all of Tyria. She rolled to her right twice, ducking behind some sort of metal lab bench / thing. Better then no cover. The norn finished loading the last two rounds. She pulled back hard on the massive bolting lever. Sanyja sprung up, this time aiming all four rounds for the quaggan's head. Fuck that noise. The ejected casing of each massive round hit the ground with a loud thud. As soon as Sanyja finished the next four rounds, she began to load four more. It would be paramount to note that each bullet being loaded into the huge rifle (a rifle a bit bigger then a charrzooka in game) was about the size of the norn's arm from finger tip to elbow. Sanyja was armed to the teeth, carrying a large bag of ammo for this blasted rifle. The norn had a total of 16 shots left.

The quaggan was hit twice in the head the other two missing, but the flesh where the quaggan was hit was metal...  It's head was metal?! It turned away from San trying to tail swipe her and anything nearby, still letting out the high pitch coo's of pain and doom. It's tail slammed down several timed now trying to make sure it got San.

By this time the sylvari had pulled herself to her feet, she was certainly going to feel that later, and it was probably going to hurt a lot more then. She /needed/ to get her daggers back, unfortunately they were on the other side of the quaggan now. She pulled her bow from her back whistling loudly to try and get the damn things attention as she knocked another arrow... she wanted a clear show at its eyes.

The giant quaggan looked over to Fare as it leaned over onto all it's fours, it already didn't have one eye thanks for the bullet that went into it's head and face as the whistle seemed to be familiar it started to run towards Fare...

San cursed, scrambling to get away from that fat piece of junk. She managed to stumble away from the tantrum, but not without several cuts all over her jacket due to flying glass, metal, and who knows what else. She noticed Fare whistling, and gave the leaf such a annoyed look. The opportunity was prime though. The quaggan was on all fours, back turned. Sanyja got down low, back to the floor. She used her legs to properly stabilize the rifle. She unloaded four more huge rounds at the quaggan. These were primarily aimed for the quaggan's back legs. She had every intention to blow them the fuck off. The norn rolled, grunting in pain. The recoil from the rifle was something fierce. Sanyja loaded four more shells into the rifle. She was down to 12 left in her ammo bag. She aimed the rifle for the quaggan again, hoping for another shot at it's face.

Farellynn seriously regretted the whistle now as the giant came charging towards her. She followed through with her plan though attempting to put an arrow into the quaggan's good eye. Hopefully with it blinded it wouldn't be as difficult to take out. After she let loose the arrow she focused her attention on her daggers, watching on in mild horror as Sanyja unloaded the gargantuan rounds into the quaggan.

The quaggan screamed as it's closest leg to San was blown off the other, heavily injured the blown off leg twitched and sparked?... Sparked... The other was bent to hell and back twisted and mangled from the blast. The quaggan had turned to the blast as the arrow aimed for it's eye missed, impaled on it's cheek now. It's hands clawed at the ground as it let forth more flames from it's mouth like a child having a tantrum flailing all over the place, it's tail slamming back into the ground to try and help it regain balance...

The sylvari took this chance to shadow step up onto the quaggan's back while Sanyja reloaded, she was going to have /her/ daggers back no matter what. However she didn't quite think the idea through and was nearly thrown off the by the flailing quaggan, gripping onto her daggers tightly she would push her legs against it's side hopefully putting enough distance between her and the beast as she tumbled toward the ground.

The quaggan continued to flail about like an unhappy child... The sound of it's scream would become a wailing sound of "OOooOOOoo" between spurts of fire from it's mouth.

Sanyja sighed, dashing quickly away from the flames. The norn skidded to a halt, able to load only two of rounds in. Again, she aimed for the head. The mouth in specific. It wanted to cry like a child? Sanyja was going to silence it like an unruly child, metaphorical slap to the face with artillery rounds. As the two rounds spiraled forward, she took cover behind some large test tube. She frowned at it, quickly loaded in two more rounds. She had a total of 12 left in the bag, and two in the large rifle. She waited for the next move ,hoping the quaggan did not spot her new cover.

The shots to the mouth would indeed shut the quaggan up they exploded in heat as the quaggan slumped down words escaping in it's last breath "Bye... Mu...mee... da...dee... loooov..vve....ooo...." the tail flopped twice more before becoming motionless on the ground the green and silver ooze spilling from it's mouth and any other injuries from the daggers, bullets and arrows that it had sustained...


Fare pulled herself to her feet, dusting herself off she looked around for Sanyja. Carefully the sylvari set her daggers back on her side before running a hand through her white head petals. She swayed a bit on her feet, before moving for cover herself, a part of the felled wall providing just that.

San whistled softly, beckoning Fare towards the large test tube she hid behind. The norn loaded four more rounds into the rifle. 8 left in the bag, plus 4 in the rifle. She sighed, not expecting to use THAT much ammo. The norn lit up a pipe, taking a big long drag. The packing smelled of a mixture of cherry blossoms and...Apples?

Fare reluctantly left her cover to go find Sanyja. She was grateful for the norns presence but not precisely pleased about it. She bounded across the open space to settle near Sanyja. Besides looking a bit crushed, and having been grazed by yet another plasma round earlier she looked pretty reasonably alright.

"Tch. Ye looks like ye gots tossed 'round a room full 'o sharp stuff. Werp...I s'pose dis room counts." Said the norn.

She handed Farellynn two pistols, magnums to be exact. Each one held a total of 6 rounds. She then handed Fare 12 more bullets, all of them stuffed away in a small box. "Ye best use dem. Daggers an' arrows ain' gunna cuts et fer anyt'ing else bigs."

The norn quickly put out her pipe, the packing pretty much spent. "C'mon. We best moves b'fer anudder fecked up abomination squirms on in..." She grunted, slowly peeking around the tube. The whole in the wall looked like a lovely place to go. "Oi, we shoulds 'ead through da 'ole..." She beckoned Fare. Time to move out.

Fare stared at the pistols, like 'Are you for fucking real? Really?' but she paced them at her side, no intention of using them. She hated pistols. She was not very impressed that they had sent San of all people, but it wasn't like she was in any place to argue with them or could afford to turn down the help. She didn't really say anything to San, mostly because she didn't have anything nice to say besides 'Thank you' and as if she were going to tell the norn that. Carefully she pulled herself to her feet trailing behind the large norn woman.

The fallen wall hole behind them as they continued on. The room ahead was rather dark until a light flickers on dimly into a smaller room. The corridor had stretches on for nearly a good half mile as the voice suddenly rings in around them. Male voice "You killed quaggan Cuddles.... YOU KILLED QUAGGAN CUDDLES!!!! ...Just for that... Bookahs!" The walls slide open grinding against stone as miniature test tubes jut forward. Stacked above each other in threes holding what looked like bugs in gel goop. They open along throughout the entire corridor as the tubes slide open and spills the liquid on the ground. The bugs skittering around and flapping their wings as a few begins to fly up.

The norn literally face-palmed, eye twitching with irritation. "Feckin' nutters..." She mumbled. Sanyja flung the large rifle over her shoulder. The norn dug into a side satchel, pulling out four grenades. Incendiary grenades to be exact. Each one had a flame symbol and a small note of warnings. Your standard issue warnings of use indoors. She turned to Fare briefly. "I 'ope ye ain' afraid 'o fire..." Grinned the norn. Without hesitation, she tossed two grenades down the hall. Tick, tick, tick. The grenades would go off any second in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics.

Farellynn was thankfully behind San, though she was concerned as to the fact they were in a very very long corridor with only so many incendiary grenades and who know how many bugs? did they bite, were they flame retardant? Who knew, but it was not as though she had a better plan.

The grenades going off into a flame broilery ball. The bugs all catching fire in the flames as they buzzed around. As the fire continued to burn them down they started to crackle and pop like fireworks. Silver compounds spilling about all over the walls and floors as it started to sizzle in heat causing steam to appear within the corridor. Soon enough all the bugs were destroyed. The silver on the ground and walls continued to heat almost to a boiling point to where it landed.

Farellynn watched on from behind Sanyja, or as best she could through the steam. She pushed the norn woman forward it would be best not to linger long in this corridor. Thought the boiling point and continued heat contained by the silver substance was an interesting attribute. She would have to ask Abranka about it one day... if they ever spoke again. "Watch your step San." Were actually the first words she'd said to the woman at all.

The norn shrugged, stuffing the two grenades back from where they came. "Aye, aye. I ain' da one made 'o plant. Dun cook yerself like a stew." She said, chuckling.
 
Sanyja made careful to step around any flaming piles of  silver goo. She continued down the hall, dragging Fare along behind her. "Ye coulds a'least say 'T'anks fer da 'elp Sanyja!' Or 'Gee, T'anks fer showin' ups!" Reals, dat be so 'ard?"

Drips of water land on Sanyja's head.

"Oooh, my poor Cuddles! Husband! These bookahs can't stay here!" cried out a female's voice in the distance.

The norn brushes off the top of her hood, looking around for the voices. Eventually she just looked up. The norn sighed,rummaging into another satchel and pulling out two flash bang grenades. "C'mon leaf..." She grunted, tugging her along more. "Ye best get dem pistols ready.."

Fare shrugs a bit, looking around, she continually checks behind them, because if she were going to spring an ambush it would be from a room someone had already cleared. Fare thought about the pistols a moment and really wanted to tell San what she though about them, but kept her mouth shut anyhow. After a moment she does speak, "I both love and hate you San... Thanks for pulling my ass out of the fire... one more time."

Nothing seemed to be in the area. Even the water droplets. Part of the water system perhaps. Or the thick moisture in the air. A strange hack and cough is heard within the area as they walked along on top of grates now. Down below was several asura all gnashed and gnarled with flesh torn from them with metallic objects all over them. All with glowing eyes of different colors as they stared at them. Continually. Entering into another room were test tubes aligned along the wall. These tubs were large and had different colors. Purple, pink, red, blue, yellow, orange, and white. The purple one spills open as the figure lands onto the ground. This one looks to be sylvari. Only it had a mix of plants and stitched flesh over it. She spoke out in a raspy female voice. "My name is Farellynn. I work for TACo and I betrayed my friends. I would slit the throat of a thousand just to do my duty!" She chuckles cold staring with... no eyes.

[ To be continued...]

Roleplay: Whispers and Nightmares - Part 1

The following is a role play scenario done on Skype between myself and some friends. In a document it is 32 pages long, so between late night typos and formatting the posts it has taken some time to put together.

This side story will be the next few updates till completed, in the mean time I have been working on some artwork for future posts and am awaiting some information before posting information on ZED. So I present to you... Whispers and Nightmares - Part 1 (the first 5 pages).

Please keep in mind that each paragraph was made by someone in the group so the writing styles are a bit different. To make it slightly easier to distinguish different writers they have been color coded.

Whispers and Nightmares
Part 1

 

The night was cool, and Metrica quiet. Nothing but the sound of night birds and the occasional nocturnal creature rustling through bushes accompanied by siamoth's snoring away in their dens. The location was that to the far north of Metrica Province, within the trees along the valley's walls between The Inquest Outer Complex and the Thaumanova Reactor...

 

Farellynn gently trotted along the path, seemed as though there was no rest for the wicked here. After having irritated the Order she was pretty keen to get back on their good side. She had barely gotten back from her last mission which, surprise involved Inquest. She gently tugged at her bland green jacket the quiet night making her nervous as she approached the area. Where were the explosions? The poorly hidden Golems? the explosions? Carefully she scanned the area looking for anything that could be out of place.

If she had looked upon the wall there was a crevasse, one that would be big enough for two people hidden near a rather dead bush... The flow of air was evident the closer she would get to it - perhaps a tunnel...
 

The tunnel would make a sharp turn and slope downward but there would be a faint glow at the bottom of the slope - a green-blue hue just enough to see a steady footpath... The walls would be dry slightly shimmering from perhaps it's mineral type reflecting the light making everything almost glow.

Gives a bit of an exasperated sigh, running one of her hands down the side of the bone jaw on her mask. She gently rustled her messy white head petals before slipping into the tunnel, looking back at the open air once more before heading around the bend and down the tunnel. Not being able to shake the foreboding feeling due to her previous dealings with Inquest her hands found the hilts of her daggers again as she very quietly moved further into the tunnel. 

As she continues down the path something strangely makes a squishy squosh sound under her step. The darkness in the room making it hard to see at first but steps further in with the casted and strange hues of the light dimly lit. It looked like that perhaps the ground was alive. Glancing to the walls it had the same slickness shine to it illuminating from the light. Further into the room they were patches of it and it seemed to be a straight corridor. Further in it just goes straight down even further. The room oddly moist in the air.

Farellynn pulled a face under her mask, that was an awful sound and an awful thought. She glanced around a bit nervous still especially with her foot falls making so much noise, however there was no where to go now but further in. She gives a pause reaching out to touch the wall.

 

Further the slope continues downward. Down and down and down. As she touches the wall it mushes with her fingers and makes a slight indentation which slowly fades away into the life like wall. Reaching to the bottom the casted hue of the light was found by its source way up high in the ceiling. The room was gigantic. Walls could not be seen here for the room was so large and the light keeping its casted dimly light. Sounds of footsteps are heard to the right. ..Or was it to the left?

 

The ashen Sylvari retreats to the doorway again, listening for the footsteps trying to discern where abouts they were. There was hardly enough light to see and that above all else made her nervous, for what if they could see her? That would put her at a real disadvantage. Silently she peered into the darkness hoping for something, anything to show itself.

 

A figure scuttles across the room. Frizzles dark hair and seemingly pale skin. Samiliar size to an Asura as it padded its way along. Seemingly however the figure was raggedly walking almost as if laboring. Glowing eyes suddenly discern upon the Sylvari and slowly walks towards her. A familiar face approaches with glowing star cyan eyes looking exactly like Abranka. The figure continuing to travel rather slowly to the Sylvari as if trying to make her out

 

In the distance there was a slight laughter, manic, female - as it trailed off into the echoes of the cavern.

Farellynn shuffled a bit forward, now very, very concerned. Her hands gripped firmly on the hilts of her daggers, her stomach reeled at the thoughts that passed through her mind. She wanted to call out, ask if it was Abranka but she said nothing, just edging a little further from the doorway.

The figure stops as it was indeed Asura. The Asura itself though seemed to have metallic objects all over it. Chest covered and torso. Twenty microscopic tubs sticking over its back and along the head to the shoulders cross crossing in every so direction as the eyes glowed. It gives a curdling scream and instantly leaps right at Farellynn.

 

Farellynn jumps back a few steps pulling her daggers out to counter the oncoming attack, whatever that was it was not Abranka, even if it /had/ been previously. She pushed one out in front of her as a means of blocking and the other she brought in low under the other trying to push it into the side of the Asura's torso. Her foreboding feeling now confirmed.

 

The laughing in the distance echoed again through out the cave as the walls seemed to shift slightly while the disfigured and heavily worked on Asura attacked Farellynn.

The dagger plunges into the soft flesh of the Asura missing the armor. Its eyes blank out completely and falls straight to the ground twitching several times and then curdles and grogs. Blood leaks out as it falls still. The blood strangely enough begins to sizzle on the ground. The color of the blood is silver.

 

With the death of the Asura the sound of metal grinding, rolling or simply just moving was disturbingly present as doors on the far side of the area opened up as musky air was let loose into the cavern - it almost smelt fresh... But something was off.
 

The room Farellynn entered would be dark, minus tubes lit up with non distinct figures in them, the liquid they were in murky almost gelled. They did not move, they did not float - merely stayed still almost as if they were frozen there... The tables nearby had papers covered in asuran scribbles and diagrams that even by looking at them made no sense whether one read asuran or not...

 

Farellynn looks around carefully, not daring to approach the tubes of liquid with the bodies of...well, she wasn't sure. She moved over to the tables however pouring over the paper work which of course made no sense to her, she'd never learned to read or write Asuran, she quickly however started to gather some of them up hoping to take them back to her employers. She would pick up a few sheets and then look around, hoping no one was aware of her paper theft.

As she gathered up some of the papers, there was a sharp "crk" sound, as if something glass was breaking...

The ashen Sylvari frowns deeply behind her mask as she tucks the papers away turning around to face the tubes. Today was not her day, She hoped to never have to deal with another Inquest after she left here. Her hands moved to find her bow, knocking an arrow in one swift fluid movement as she spun on her heel.

 

It was the tubes, they were breaking! One of the shapes jolted violently trying to escape the tube as it started to leak goo through the cracks, eventually the sharp jolts would release the creature - it would let out a gargling sound as it shook the gel off of it's self staring rather angerly at Farellynn and her bow.

 

She didn't hesitate a moment taking aim and letting loose the arrow she had knocked. Quickly she drew her hand behind her to knock a second arrow, no waiting around today. She had promised to come home and she had all intents and purposes of making it home.

 

The creature hissed and was knocked back the Arrow lodged into the side of it's face. It growled at her jumping at her, it was about her size, the bulk of a small charr, and the general proportions of a basilisk... It too had several tubes and wiring coming out of it...

She let loose the second arrow jumping backwards up onto the table dropping the bow as she reached for her daggers. Whatever they were working on here was pretty disgusting, and she had more than half a mind to kill whatever was treating these creatures like this, however orders were orders.

 

The other arrow piercing the skull of the creature impaling it's jaw shut as it withered and squirmed in pain it's tail lashed out breaking other tubes nearby yielding no other creatures, just lifeless mounds of flesh and twisted metal... It flailed trying to get the arrow out but eventually slowed down to a twitching mass as there was an electric buzz and then nothing... The creature laid motionless...

 

Fare slowly approached the creature on the ground, dagger clutched in her hands, she wanted to make sure this thing was really dead. Her breath was a bit ragged, the surprises getting to be a bit much. Whoever these Inquest were they deserved death not questioning.

 

The creature laid motionless, though the metallic devices on it's back seemed to be buzzing with electricity, perhaps the arrows weren't the full cause of the death...

Farellynn circled the creature once before beginning to try and cut out some of the metal bits from the amorphous creature. It was dead already so no harm in trying to find out precisely what it was. Not that she was any kind of scientist or anything. She leaned over grasping at the flesh of the creature Orrian dagger in her other hand as she made the first cut.

 

The nearby electrical imbedded into it's skin still had current flowing through it and would zap her, what she could tell was that it ran deep - there seemed to be small runes along the back as well etched into the skin.

She pulls back quickly the shock having been quite unpleasant if not painful. She frowned deeply shaking her head, no other choice but onward and she feared for the worst, it was only going to become more unpleasant. Gently she idly fingered the cauterized wound on her side she'd received just days ago from you guessed it, Inquest. She returned to collect her bow before plowing further on into the darkness.

Loud steps can be heard this time back in the other room she had come from. The rather large and dimly lit room. A large object was standing in the way to the doorway exit.

She spin on her heel hand moving to the back of her head, a small 'pop' is heard and the bone from the mask clatters to the floor, quickly she pulls off the rest of her mask, Not having her full range of vision was just not working out so well. She peered at the large object hands again finding her hilts. She waited for... whatever it was to make the first move.

 

*The object steps backwards as a smoky mist vents from the shoulders. As she stepped closer the dim lit room shows it was in fact a golem. Strangely however, this golem had a chassy over the chest with flickering lights on it. A single red eye was evident on just one shoulder while the other was at the torso. It now started moving forwards towards her as it was much larger then her*

Golems, Farellynn's single most favorite Asuran contraption, she really loved the inquest variety especially. Quickly she pulled her bow off her back knocking the arrow and firing at the red eyes in a single swift movement. Without waiting to see whether it hit she dropped the bow, shadow stepping towards the golem daggers drawn, she's climb the damn thing if she had too.

 

Both of the red eyes crack and shatter as they shut down. As she instantly shadow steps behind the golem. It stumbles slightly from the two hits and then stops almost doing a look left look right motion as if trying to find Farellynn.

 

Farellynn wished now that she had taken more time to learn about golems and their construction, the most she could do now would be to attack any of it's joints to immobilize it. She spun around behind her daggers still in hand as she tried to plunge her daggers into the golem, praying to every god in the book that this would work in at least some capacity and the daggers wouldn't just bounce off.

 

As she attacks into the joints of the golem it would electrocute for a moment then topple to one side. The torso on it detaches as the top half of the unit now floats with thrusters. It turns swiftly and spins at high speeds. Plasma bolts begin to unleash from the golem in a spray just shooting them out whatever it desired to shoot them at.

 

Why? Why did she have the unnatural propensity to make golems fire wildly? What about her made the golems feel like this was necessary? In panicked motion Fare shadow stepped in behind some of the intact tubes knowing that this would not save her pretty much at all however her options were limited. She needed just a second to think, not that it was easy with the sound of breaking... well everything. She popped back into existence in the same spot she was next to the golem arms raised daggers coming swiftly down trying to hit... something anything... she needed a pause in the attack.

 

The shots hitting a few of the tubes as it then suddenly stops from the dagger blow. It lands to the ground using an arm to try and turn around as if trying to look straight to her. The attacks pausing for a moment as it swipes with a free arm directly at her.

 

The free arm plows the Sylvari over with incredible force, and one of her two daggers slips free from her fingers, she hits the floor a bit away. Struggling to keep focus, winded as she tries to scramble to her feet, no chance in hell a /golem/ was going to do this Sylvari in.

 

The flames underneath sputter a few times but no good. The damage from the previous blow seemed to have given out from its flying. It now instead crawls straight to her using its arms. The heavy chassis armor scraping along the ground to her.

 

And what a terrible noise that was. She shadowsteps to the Golem closing both hands around one dagger in an attempt to drive it into that ugly golem noggin. This was it, she had no plan B, no 'what if this doesn't work?' This had to work here and now so she could continue on. By this point she was wondering if the Order had it in for her... they /must/ know about the exceedingly large number of golems she'd run into in the last little while.

 

The golem suffers the blow to its head as it grows suddenly still. It falls flat to the ground with electrical sounds going off from it. The back chassis then opens up as a small device slowly begins to raise into the air on a pedestal. It glows on as a hologram appears with the words "HA... HA...HA" written on it. It then starts to count down. "5 .....4.......3"

 "Really? REALLY? Fuck me." The Sylvari breaths out stumbling backwards to try and flee, hell somewhere anywhere, the endless darkness that spawned these horrors was even safer than here. There were the explosions, it just wouldn't be a day with the inquest without golems and explosions. This time she didn't take care to collect her weapons, her Orrian dagger being the only one she had on her, the others would be quite close to the golem.

 

As she continues on in the endless room the doors slam shut in the room. A wall grinds upon stone and slab. Somewhere back near where the golem was. The grinding sounds continue on echoing into the room.

[ To be continued...]