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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:37:46 GMT -6
The other bits of fish were left laying in the dirt, with the no command repeated once the beast had waddled over to one while Haix grabbed a new handful of fish meat cubes. It practically seemed to deflate, shoulders sagging as it stared at the meat. Haix called its name, and it sorrowfully turned its head away from the hunk of fish flesh to chitter at Haix, a pitiful sight that evaporated the moment Haix stepped within the ring of movement the rope allowed, waving the fish as she called for the young chelcauda to come to her.
Coin needed no repeat of the command to obey, no snarled word to catch its attention. Any pity it might have invoked in a more foolish being would have vanished the second it began its charge, chittering taking on a decidedly more energetic tone as it rushed the short distance to Haix. [Coin come start] 92
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:38:44 GMT -6
Haix did not move, confident that the creature would stop in time. Sure, the beast had been violent before, but labs-crafted creatures tended to learn to obey their masters quickly, a weakness embedded into them by the soft-skins who made them. Naturally, no matter how stupid the creature was, it would not dare to harm her in anyway.
She was, of course, completely wrong.
Coin struck her legs with enough force to nearly knock her off her feet, a quick and ungainly throwing out of her arms and tail as she staggered backwards all that kept her from being knocked onto her tail. It did nothing for the part of her legs that had been body slammed, and she could tell from the throbbing as she steadied herself that it was going to hurt more later. But she dared not berate the creature that stood panting before her, with it’s inquisitive chirp and head tilt. 93
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:39:19 GMT -6
There was no way she could allow it to grow up thinking that was the correct way to respond to the call, but to tell it no, to scold it would damage a perfectly good start to the training. Instead, she gave it praise that sounded just as real as the previous times, if somewhat strained as she rubbed at the leg that had taken the brunt of the hit, and tossed a piece of fish flesh to the chelcauda to punctuate that it had done a good job.
After the piece of meat was gone, she moved away from the chelcauda, taking a few steps further away from the circle when it insisted on following her and the meat. From there, she turned her back to Coin, watching it with brief glances over the shoulder as it gradually snuck its way over to one of the further pieces of abandoned meat. 94
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:40:44 GMT -6
As it furtively ate with all the stealth of a bwee confronted with a truffle, Haix slipped back into the circle again, this time taking care to brace herself. She called to the chelcauda by name, then held up the fish with the command for it to come as the beast turned to face her. With a happy chirp, it rushed her again, but this time she did not stagger back from the hit. No, this time she held against the fat boulder, and Coin bounced away from the impact with a chirp.
Allowing it no time to consider that the impact itself was a punishment, that it had been wrong to come over when called, Haix praised it and tossed it another cube of fish meat. And this time, having not been bounced out of the circle by the momentum of the tubby hatchling, she stood there. Waiting. Ready to hop out of the circle the instant the chelcauda remembered she was made of meat, or that its previous behavior could be resumed without fear of choking. 95
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:41:20 GMT -6
Instead, after a few long minutes of the chelcauda dragging its tail in the dirt and staring at the remaining fish treats with round eyes, it gave a surprised chirp as it found one of the forgotten pieces of meat on the ground, and snapped it up. With one last, pitiful look at Haix, or rather, the fish meat that Haix held in her hands, Coin left to search the rest of the circle for bits of fish.
This time Haix did not wait for Coin to reach the furthest point in the circle away from her, but called the chelcauda back after only half a minute of its snorting search. It returned when it saw the treat once again, then twice again as Haix repeated the training over and over, until she had to grab a new bunch of fish meat. With that handful in hand, she held it behind her back as she called for Coin to return to her.
96
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:41:50 GMT -6
Again and again they ran through it, hitting the same beats as the previous tricks. Random words were thrown in, random tones contriving to trick the chelcauda as to the intent of the command and rewarding it when Coin only responded to the correct command.
Then she was running low of her fistful of fish cubes, and Haix tried to replace the treats with praise. Not entirely, no, she knew that the beast would eventually fail to respond if there was no treat waiting for it ever, but enough so that the treats lasted much longer than they should have otherwise done. The chelcauda barely seemed to notice the lack of treats, taking the happy sounds Haix spewed with excited chittering of its own. Eventually, Haix felt safe assuming that the chelcauda would obey the command, and she decided to move onto what would be the last for their current visit to the hell place. [Come end.] 97
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:42:34 GMT -6
It was kind of funny. Here she was on the grounds of one of the most profane locations in the soft-skin hive, thought she was starting to believe few places nestled within it were not, and she had been training some tubby beast some of the most boring commands possible for some soft-skin guild and based on some soft-skin rumors. She could have laughed out loud at how ridiculously mundane the mansion seemed to feel even as a harsh gust of wind struck her, the air seeming to drop several degrees. But she had not lost her wits, and there was still one thing left to train before she bothered to see if the mansion rewarded those who brought the mundane and boring with them.
For the last command, she had one hand tucked behind her back, meat hidden from the creature's sight as she approached it with more confidence than before, the empty hand held upright with the palm facing Coin as she gave the new command. [Coin stay start.] 98
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:43:10 GMT -6
It was a new command, with a new gesture that meant little to the beast beyond that there was no fish hiding in that hand. It stayed still however for a breath, staring at Haix with its head tilted as it tried to see where her other hand had gone. For that, she gave it a treat and praise. Rather than be confused and have stayed still for longer, the chelcauda took it to mean that the time had come to follow Haix around the small radius, quick interjections of “No,” all that stopped it from rearing up and placing its forelegs on her.
After a few solid minutes of it following her as if that would be enough to make her drop the treats, she told it to stay again, holding up the empty hand and making a pushing motion towards the chelcauda. When it took a step towards her, she told it no, when it tried to step in any direction, she skipped there to head it off and repeat both the learned no and the new command of stay. 99
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:43:47 GMT -6
When Coin finally grew frustrated enough to stay still longer than it took for Haix to tell it to do so, Haix gave the chelcauda a treat and praise, the latter seeming to signal the chelcauda to start moving towards Haix everytime without fail. After the fourth time, with the chelcauda sticking so closely to her that it nearly looped around her legs with the rope, she began to extend the time between the given command and the treat, the brief moment of the beast pausing to take a breath or blink no longer enough time to receive a treat.
When it tried to move too soon, Haix moved in front of it with her upraised palm and an annoyed command for it to not start walking. When it did stay still long enough to satisfy her, an amount of time that only grew with each success, it was given a fish cube and more praise. 100
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:44:18 GMT -6
Haix wondered how much of the chelcauda was pure stomach as she went back to the cooler several times for more meat. The first of those times, she had told the chelcauda to stay only for it to be standing as close as the rope allowed when she turned around, giving her an innocent-sounding chirp that made her feel that the dumb beast was doing it on purpose. The other times saw a greater amount of success, with her taking several extra seconds to dig through the cooler to turn around and see the chelcauda waiting patiently where she had left it.
Having decided that her current handful would be the last the chelcauda received before they left the mansion, the tubby creature somehow looking even fatter as it eyed the food just as eagerly as when they had started. Now it waited for more than a few minutes before the treats were tossed to it, though it started to fidget as the time stretched on. 101
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:44:53 GMT -6
With the last handful beginning to run low, and the moon still not having moved an inch in the false night, Haix was eager for Coin to prove it understood the command and let them leave the mansion grounds. The previous commands started being thrown in with the false ones, the chelcauda coming up to her when ordered to do so as obedient as any slave-hound, looking over at her but not moving when its name was called after being told to stay.
The final test was one done with only two pieces of fish cubes left in her hand. The chelcauda was told to stay and, as it watched while fidgeting in place, Haix held the fish cube up for it to see. It did not move, so she threw the piece of fish, along with a reminder for the beast to stay, towards Coin. The command easily reached the young chelcauda. The fish did not, landing in a puff of dirt a few feet away. 102
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Post by Alma on Oct 20, 2020 23:46:42 GMT -6
Haix waited for one breath, then two, then three as she watched the chelcauda stare longingly at the piece of fish, lifting up one leg. Haix opened her mouth to admonish it, annoyed that they might have to spend even longer on the mansion property, but shut her jaws as the foot came down to rest in its original place. The chelcauda watched the meat with the intensity of a starving beast, but itmade no further move towards it, even turning to look at Haix obedient;y when its name was called.
It remained still as Haix reached it and picked up the piece of flesh, brushing the dirt from its surface. When she looked from the meat to the chelcauda, the beast was standing as stiffly as it could, looking up at her with wide eyes as she held up both treats. She praised it, and dropped bother pieces, leaving the chelcauda to enjoy the treats as she slipped the rope free of the stone, tugging on the rope and calling out the command for it to come to her as she grabbed the cooler. It was time to go, and the faint hope that some cursed soft-skin treasure might appear had yet to be extinguished. [Stay end.] 103 [Leaving now unless there is an encounter. Self note, 8 more posts until another Haix level here.]
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Post by Nadia on Oct 23, 2020 11:57:16 GMT -6
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Post by Alma on Oct 28, 2020 19:42:36 GMT -6
The first thing she noticed as she led the beast back to the exit was the movement of leaves. In the sea of brown that awaited them, six glossy, sickly yellow leaves fluttered and flapped in a small circle. Another few steps closer, hand tight upon the leash as she snapped at the lunging chelcauda to stop pulling them towards the leaves, and she caught glimpse of white breaching above the brown, then back beneath as they carried the leaves on their circular path.
With a demand that the chelcauda stay, and a few seconds with her foot upon the leash in case the training had not stuck as well as she thought, she released the rope and crept closer. The cooler rumbled over the ground as she drew up to the edge of the leaves, and now she could see, well, she did not know how to describe it other than a ritual.
A crystal lay at the center, emitting it's own soft light in a pit of leaves, surrounded by random bottles and jars, and the beasts that circled them all. One looked like a snake with a soft-skin face twisted into a grimace, the stem of one leaf head firmly in its mouth as it slithered through the air. Another she mistook for a twig bent and shook as it cracked its way behind the ghoul, a leaf held between two of it's shoots. The things that did not so much resemble beasts as lost pieces of the soft-skins the demonhouse had consumes waved yet more leaves, one that scurried like a spider upon six fingers clutching three leaves with the smaller fingers that protruded from its body. The last of the creatures was leafless, a small beastkin that ran in the opposite direction of the others, forcing them to veer from their path lest it collide.
The ritual was soundless except for the panting of the tiny beastkin as it propelled itself on all fours around the mound of crystal and glass and the snapping of the twig as it flicked itself after the rest. Haix watched the loop with increasing suspicion, glancing around the courtyard for any sign of treachery. What were they summoning? And was it too late to halt it?
She grabbed the tiny beastkin first, the creature immediately setting its teeth against her scales as she pulled it into the air, then threw it into the opened cooler. The rest of the pocket pets continued their race, and she grabbed each in turn, all of them quickly joining the shivering beastkin upon a cushion of ice. Then came the other items, cursed treasures of some kind no doubt, and they too were tossed in with the tiny beasts.
The lid was shut a moment later, Haix sparing just long enough to pull the lug on the side to allow some of the melted water to flow out and meager air to flow in as she called Coin to her. When the leash was in her hand once more, she led the beast and the cooler free of the mansion, not pausing until they had returned to the kennel.
[Coin-8.0, Leaving for real this time.] 104
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:43:23 GMT -6
The Incursion.
That was what the sign called it, announcing it in the same plain text that it referenced any other soft-skin holiday. Looking beyond the sign showed the house had repaired itself since the last month, the paint coating its walls looking as fresh and vibrant as if it had been laid only hours ago. The grounds also looked distinctly less dead, a variety of vegetation she had only seen matched by rich soft-skin gardens replacing the dead leaves and the bare branches she had seen clawing at the sky.
As bizarre of a sight as the mansion might have been to one who had seen it on the verge of collapse days earlier, Haix’s gaze fell from it back to the sign and the simplified explanation of what to expect, of what holiday it meant to give life to. The Incursion. With a soft-skin associated as the god. The unseen scrap of night floating in the sky far beyond her did not see her lip curl upward.
November start: 1
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