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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:47:13 GMT -6
She hoped this would not lead him to become a cringing coward like Dummy. She did not need another useless beast like the two unbroken brown drakes she already had, and if he decided to take being chucked on to a cushioned couch as a reason to forever cower and strike only at whatever came in range, she would have no use for him. She could not even stud him out, allowing his vitality to be drained in exchange for credits and jewels, for all sarane hens appeared to have lost their cycle. Perhaps too many hens had become dominant, or their blood had become so thin that there was nothing left with which to reproduce. Her hens seemed as lively as ever though, so she guessed it was some lab-made limit.
Iago did not quite watch Haix turn from him, his gaze locked roughly onto the spot on the carpeting a few inches in front of her. 66
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:47:24 GMT -6
He was scared, terrified that something bad was about to happen to him, some great punishment inflicted beyond throwing him away, but he could not flee. Part of it, a large part of it actually, was the wall he could feel pressed against his tail and rear legs, preventing him from backing further away. He could have looked away from her to see if there was a way over it, but to look away might cause her to pounce on him and rip him to shreds. To move forward and go around the things blocking his retreat might cause her to pounce and gut him. Even so much as looking up could cause her to pounce, and he was amazed he was still alive, certain he was doing something right. So he stared at the little spot even as her legs moved, shivering but determined not to give her a reason to kill him. 67
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:47:35 GMT -6
Haix was too distracted by the clear trap the mansion had set out for them to watch the sarane quake, her only concession to remembering his existence being to let the rope unravel enough that he would not be dragged off the couch as she investigated the liquid and brown things. Her finger did not bleed freely, the tiny hole the sarane caused rapidly scabbing as she tried to puzzle out what threat the mansion meant by the items. The liquids were in the cups and the brown things, a type of candy possibly, on a plate. Did the mansion think her a soft-skin, complete with their mannerisms, and so foolish as to consume anything put out in such a way? She would not be fooled.
The tea began to cool as she looked over the items one last time, looking for anything else the mansion may have summoned there. Iago had no such interest. 68
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:47:55 GMT -6
He quivered and shook for a little while longer, but the sarane hatchling was still young, brimming with the curiosity one might expect from the recently hatched. His eyes flickered upwards for just a breath, a flick that was not enough to tell him anything more than that the han still stood in front of him, something that the spot he had been watching had warned him of before. So he looked up again, this time long enough to make out that she still faced away from him, clearly having lost interest in killing him. It would be the perfect time to sneak away from her.
He held his spot on the couch for a few more seconds as he kept his gaze on her, waiting for her to spin around and bite him. When she failed to, he began to scoot towards the edge of the couch, watching her all the while. 69
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:48:06 GMT -6
He would need to be ready to flee at the first sign that she noticed him in case she was still mad. So he watched her rather than the edge of the couch as he gripped it with his front claws, pulling himself closer and pushing his hind legs out behind him. His claws dug into the fabric as he slid, but it did not tear, the embroidery proving to be as resistant to damage as the metal railing outside had been. When he reached the edge of the couch, he still had not taken his gaze off of the hen, and she still had not turned around. He slid down the couch’s front on his belly, forearms outstretched and waving as he felt for the floor. His body soon slid faster, the majority of it now over the edge, and he slid to the floor with a squeak, legs crumpling awkwardly underneath him on the carpet. 70 ((Iago-14.0))
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:48:29 GMT -6
At the noise, Haix turned around to see what the hatchling was up to, and he panicked. Jerking upright, he bolted from her, the slack of the rope playing out for several feet before he reached its end. Digging his claws into the carpet did not pull him any further, and he squeaked in terror as the hen no doubt opened up her jaws and-
Proceeded to do nothing but make some noise. He paused in his struggles, daring to turn around and see that she had crouched down behind him, making sounds no more threatening that a chirp. He still strained to escape at first, though it was a bit harder to do with his head curled back to stare at her. Then she pulled a shriveled and dry brown thing out of one of her pouches, the smell catching up to him a few seconds later as she waved it towards him. It was meat! 71
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:48:39 GMT -6
His struggles ceased at once. The sarane hatchling turned around and took a single step towards her, staring at the meat as she made soft noises to entice him to come a little closer. It worked. Iago came within grabbing range a few seconds later as he stared at the piece of jerky as if he was hypnotized by it. She could have grabbed him then, but instead tossed the small piece of meat to him, still talking as he gulped it down. Traumatizing him might cause him to be defective when he grew, and she could think of a few uses beyond the canceled pit fights that required him not to be so paranoid.
She threw him a couple more pieces of the meat, then held the last one in her hand, the treat standing up on her palm. It took him a full minute to snag the treat, but after it he pushed his muzzle into her hand, looking for more. 72
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:48:51 GMT -6
Well, the trip had been a complete failure, but at least she had not lost anything.
Haix stood, slowly to avoid startling the hatchling that still snuffled at the carpeting near her. She could come back another day, preferably one in which the mansion celebrated something with a few less roses. She would check the sign on the gate once she got out to see what month sounded the best for her plans.
She walked over to the door they had entered through, hatchling trailing her as he kept his snout pressed to the carpet, surprised to find it shut. Had she missed the bells ringing when it fell shut? Or perhaps it was another one of its tricks. Either way, Haix was more than happy to finally leave, and reached out to pull it open. It slid on its hinges just as easily as before, revealing a sight that was nothing like it was before. 73
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:49:02 GMT -6
Where the front yard of the mansion had been was another room, this one stocked with food and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, boxes of something proclaiming to be tea stacked on a counter. That was all she had time to make out before she slammed the door shut. She opened it a second later, revealing the same kitchen that had replaced the yard, the room stubbornly remaining there each time she opened the door.
The warning had mentioned this, but how could the room have spun around to open to a kitchen when it had been the yard without her feeling a thing? She slammed it shut one last time, backing away from the door and almost tripping on Iago. Now the final trap would be sprung, something much worse than poisoned drink and candy. Well, she would fight it to the best of her ability until the end, and hopefully draw some sort of blood from her inanimate foe. 74
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Post by Alma on Feb 28, 2020 23:49:16 GMT -6
Bells jingled merrily, and Haix spun to face them, ready to let loose a screech in defiance as whatever the mansion had sent to face her appeared. Except the thing that she faced was the door to the outside, now tucked beside a gas lamp on the other side of the room. In the exact spot she was sure there had been no door before.
Rather than ignore it and return to the wrong but right door, she walked slowly towards it, waiting for it to slam shut or disgorge some terrible beast. Nothing happened as she reached the circle of light it let into the room, and, at this distance, she could see that it was indeed the same view that she had from the original door.
She went through it, pulling the hatchling along behind her before closing the door and looking upon the rose-lined path once more. The pair of them waited there on the porch for a moment, looking around the yard as if they had never seen it before. ((Iago-15.0))
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Post by Renathan on Feb 29, 2020 10:58:01 GMT -6
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:16:22 GMT -6
She hated credits.
They were easy enough to come by in the soft-skin hive, with the labs themselves paying a healthy stipend to those who interacted with their creatures, the field testing rarely any more strenuous than teaching a vulticus it’s name or a vespa how to fly. For those who wanted more, for whatever reason anyone could want more of the plastic chips when all of the basics were free, there were jobs. Jobs to take on that were put up by different soft-skin businesses, jobs of all kinds so that an old fool could find servitude to the soft-skins bearable. Jobs that let her hunt to her heart's content, and protected her from enraged soft-skins as she skinned their beasts in front of them. That the beasts had been freely roaming and attacking travelers would not stop their demands that she pay for a revival, or pay in her own flesh for the particularly attached, but the small piece of paper stating she was a ranger fended off all but the most violent of them.
With her wealth of credits, she had taken to purchasing supplies, leaving the hive and her servitude to discover that there was nothing left outside of the hive. Not truly.
And when she had returned, her job had not returned to her. The soft-skins had mewled politely, covering their mouths to hide grins and choke back laughter at the dull-scaled creature that had come back to ask for her job. They were full up, their ranks of hunters bursting and their territories overlapping with the soft-skins who sought the thrill of the hunt. They waved her off, promising to contact her if a position opened up, never asking how to get in contact with her before turning to face some ruddy-skinned youth with a dead lerrel in his hands.
There had been a bit of shame then, a thin “Dleassse” escaping her throat as the soft-skin babbled with the other about the kill. They did not react, though whether from tact or poor hearing she did not know. She could not bring herself to compound it further, and left the small office without another word.
There had been no intention to ever to return to the hive. She had returned in misery, with one thought to keep her warm, a delusion that some soft-skin earth-ripper might manage. But she had no job with which to obtain enough to interest one, no beasts to show at her stalls that would catch soft-skin eyes and loosen the strings of soft-skin purses. To fail to pay meant losing her old home entirely, losing what little she had to protect the ember of pride that smoked within her. How far would she fall then once it burnt out completely? Into the fog of opium that would make a slave of her as it had of the ones she owned? A drooling, toothless old lizard that did nothing more than turn credits in for a few pinches of dust?
Her head drooped as she considered it, tail held just above the cobbles of the path. She was likely too old for egg-selling, not that she expected there was even a single true ssashirk in the city, much less one that would make the purchase. Her beasts were tired things she had bought in better times from soft-skin stalls, all of them rejects that only she had been foolish enough to pay an outrageous price for as dreams of hunts clouded her mind. They might be painted with dyes and chalk to have a more pleasing pattern, a seller found that did not bother to check the stock that a glance told them was beautiful.
She was thinking which of them might better hold the dyes when the voice broke into her thoughts. “Haix? Hey, you’re Haix, right?” She paused and slowly, as if it pained her, turned her head just enough to catch sight of the grinning soft-skin and the hide armor that it wore. One of the furless ones, the mop of hair on its head looking as though it could not warm a hatchling, a hint of musk revealing him as male despite the flowery scent covering it. His smile grew and he continued, “Take it you weren’t able to get your old job back?” It’s cheeriness was met with a hiss, and she turned away to continue her walk to the kennels and her earlier train of thought. There was no need to bear the insults of some roaming soft-skin.
The soft-skin clearly did not realize that, falling into step beside her. “I know the rangers are a bit full up, what with everyone and their granny wanting to be a hero. Used to think about doing it myself, you know?” It was hard to tune him out as he continued to chatter, but she gave it her best effort as he blathered on about the rangers and rules and plastic credit chips. If there was a point, he had until she reached her kennels and slammed the heavy metal door in his face.
Then he hit her, an open hand slapping against her. Her failings, her tribe’s failings had made her lethargic, but she sprang away from him as one might from a hungry snorg, baring her own teeth in a parody of his smile as she hissed at him from a crouch. The soft-skin blinked, then slapped his gloved hands against his own face this time rather than her shoulder, the smile vanishing as he dragged his hand down across his face. “Look. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to talk to someone like you lizards.” The admittance did little to uncurl the tension from her spine, hands still held ready to scratch and maim. He looked at her, eyes dropping briefly to her teeth before meeting her eyes once more. “There’s a job. I need to have it done to prove my way in, but, well, I’m no ranger. Shadows, I’ve never even been inside the damned mansion.” The soft-skin stopped even looking at her as he made vague gestures in the air, none of which were even remotely in the direction of the mansion. “If I don’t do this, I have no prestige. Nothing to show that I’m capable. But,” the eyes came back to stare at hers, “I don’t have to do this that way. I can be a broker, right? And an ex-ranger like you, you’d be perfect for the job.”
Confused, Haix held her stance as the soft-skin looked at her, raising one hand towards her with his palm up. Soft-skins were rarely so foolish to wander the streets offering jobs, and she had never had one seek her. “Pay?” she asked, curious in spite of herself about what the soft-skin was offering.
“Huh? Oh! Pay. Right, right. So, normally, there’s this commission, I’d get paid when you complete it, then I pay you your part.” Haix’s eyes narrowed as she considered how little a share might be, how small a drop in the river of credits the earth-rippers demanded, and the soft-skin spoke quicker, pitch rising slightly. “B-but this time, I’d give you it all. All the reward.” The smile was back, teeth bared as she slowly tucked away her own, straightening up from her crouch. Before she could speak and ask exactly how much the offered job would be worth, the soft-skin continued, “And you can have the sale credits. Or the reward if we go that way. I don’t need the credits, I just need, well, the credit.” His smile grew a little larger at that.
“Jod?” He stared at her as she asked, then slapped his leg with a laugh.
“Yeah, the job’s easy enough. See, I heard,” he took a step closer to Haix as his voice quieted, Haix only not backing away with a slight bit of effort, “that things get lost at the mansion. People always come out, else the labs probably would have to shut it down, though maybe not in the same shape they were before.” A laugh here from the soft-skin that Haix did not bother to mimic. “Well, the people come out, but sometimes their pets and gear don’t. And this time, I happen to have heard from reliable sources that a custom, a fancy custom, one of those ones that you can only tell what they were if you squint and tilt your head, got left behind by some crying kid. A gallor, one of the tiny ones, and the parents don’t want to be in trouble if their darling boy’s beast decides to start chewing folks up. Fines can drag a person into debt, yah know?”
She did not bite him. From the way his smile seemed to twist higher at one side, the way he emphasized debt, she should have, but she did not.
“So that’s where you come in. A ssashirk, all fierce and an ex-ranger to boot. You've been to the mansion before, or so I’ve heard. You pop in, track the stupid custom down, and drag it back out. The dotting parents pay us a reward for cleaning up their mess, we sell the tiny thing for a ton of credits-” she snorted at that, to which he quickly amended “credits that all go to you, of course, and I get credit for the capture. Easy.” His hands were fluttering around the air again. “So, deal?”
She waited a few beats of her heart, but there was no question of it. At least a hunt meant she would keep some pride intact. “Deal.” He slapped her again on the shoulder, grinning down at her, and it took the thought of how many credits she might earn to stop her from gouging out his eyes.
She had gotten more details from him later, though not much beyond the creature’s general appearance and behavior. Small, white, lacking a beak and adorned with red sashes that were actually a part of the beast. Either patterned after a cheeky or a glamor, which meant it would be easy enough to move once it was knocked out. That little tidbit led her to stashing some drugged fruit in the sack as well as meat, though its diet could be iron nails with all the customization such beasts had.
She had left the armor back in her kennel, something she regretted as she looked upon the dilapidated state of the mansion with only her sack of supplies and the cursed knife she had brought. Still, speed and silence mattered more in hells of magic like the mansion, and she doubted even the heavy metal shells she had some soft-skins clanking around in could protect her from its less physical perils if it wanted to harm her. (October-1)
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:17:07 GMT -6
Speed was certainly of the essence. The soft-skin had been sure to impress that upon her, warning that there might be other hunters, or that the mansion itself might up and spit the beast out at some random passerby. He claimed that some friend of his had been watching the house, both serving to gently encourage those walking nearby to continue walking farther away, and to be sure that the little custom did not come out through the front. That the beast might escape through the back, or to the properties on either side had only caused the broker to laugh, and only the thought of hiring an earth-ripper, of twisting some piece of the labs into what it had taken away from her kept her teeth from his throat.
She had not seen the friend when she approached the mansion, no soft-skin daring to block her path as she stood by the gate. 2
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:17:52 GMT -6
The mansion had changed since the last time she had been there, having fallen back into the decayed state it had taken on her first visit. A quick look at the warning sign revealed no new information, but she carefully looked it over as if to find the custom flitting between the written words, trapped somewhere beyond even her ability to hunt it. But the sign was nothing more than a sign.
She touched a finger to her dagger as she looked up at the mansion crouched behind the fence, the shattered windows and warped wood making it appear as if it was some great insectile beast rather than a worn down soft-skin dwelling. Likely it was meant to intimidate the soft-skins, and herself, that dared to wander into it, but she could not help but be grateful for the small familiarity.
And then, something white flashed in the window, white as a sheet, or as a custom might be. 3
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:18:29 GMT -6
No more time to waste then.
The gate creaked painfully as she pushed it, apparently determined to groan louder the slower she tried to open it. It cleared a small path in the brown leaves for her, and she stepped onto the exposed dirt, staggering as the warmth of the sun was replaced by the sudden chill of night. The gate slipped free of her hands, clanging shut behind her with a scream of tortured metal, but she was too busy staring at the sky to care.
Where the sun had been, now a massive moon hung, the only light illuminating the courtyard of rustling leaves and bare-branched trees. The latter seemed to reach for her as she stared, their forms losing color as they became darker than the night sky behind them. But she had been there before, and steeling herself against the thought of the branches wrapping around her throat like the snakes they resembled, she looked down at the ground and thought of the custom. Of the reward that awaited her. 4
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