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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:23:18 GMT -6
But the kick had not been one with extended claws, and Balboa rolled off of Hektor uninjured, though her sides heaved as she tried to sit up. Farida trotted over to the pair of them, sniffing Hektor and then Balboa, snorting when she found neither of them injured. She grunted, a sound Hektor repeated while Balboa simply huffed, and the three balgor were off after the snorfle again. The miasma balgor trailed slightly behind as she caught her breath, and that was all the time Hektor and Farida needed to catch the snorfle and rip it to pieces.
Balboa approached them as they ripped the snorfle in half, reaching for the leg dangling from Farida’s no longer white muzzle. This earned her a snarl and a swat, the miasma balgor left with a stinging nose as Farida walked to her preferred place to lie down and eat her share. Her attempt to take a piece from Hektor was slower, the miasma balgor holding her jaws open as she slowly approached the gnawing Hektor, but all she received there was a few splatters of blood as Hektor roared her displeasure. The custom had twisted away from the miasma as Alma had looked back up at the noise, the human immediately returning her gaze to the book as she saw the bloody thing held in the custom balgor’s claws.
Without a share of meat from the hunt, Balboa walked over to the spot where the snorfle had fallen, looking up at the sealed hole with a forlorn hope.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:24:24 GMT -6
Nothing had come out by the time the other two had picked the bones as clean as they could, Hektor cracking the bones open to get at the slurry within while Farida batted at what might have been one of the creature’s hoof-claws. The miasma balgor had walked back to the water trough as Alma watched, her head hung low to the ground as Alma’s finger hovered over the ‘Dispense’ button. The human hit the button just as the balgor lowered her head to drink, and the hatch slid open with a hiss as a pair of squealing snorfle came tumbling out.
A single snorfle was barely enough of a meal for one of the balgor. Alma raised her book up to block her view of the cage, and hoped the three balgor would do better this time as the shrill trumpeting of the snorfle worked its way past her earplugs.
The balgor did not do better. If anything, the second hunt was infinitely worse.
As if she could not decide which of the two identical beasts looked tastier, Balboa bounced her attention between the two prey beasts constantly, rushing in as fast as she could to try to secure the kill before either of the other two balgor could claim it. Her leap at one snagged Farida’s claws in her mane, sending the panicking beast into the other as Hektor lunged, causing the custom balgor to land on stones rather than her chosen prey. Balboa stepped on tails, bumped into shoulders, and locked herself in a brief fight with the temblor balgor, the two predators snapping at the open air between them as Hektor fruitlessly chased the small prey around the cage.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:25:32 GMT -6
When one of the leaps was successful, it was more of an accident than purposeful working together. Balboa had ran at her chosen snorfle as Farida watched, the miasma balgor’s jaws never quite able to snap shut on the snorfle’s tail as it bleated and dashed away. Leaving Hektor to hunt the other snorfle, not trusting that either of them could catch it with Balboa still locked in her chase, Farida ran towards where the snorfle was dashing to, slowly closing in on its side. It saw her a moment before it tried to do its usual trick of dashing in a new direction, instead maintaining its course as Balboa leapt from behind and caught it in her claws. It and the miasma balgor tumbled across the cage floor, the prey squealing as Balboa slashed at it with tusks and claws, unable to grab the squirming creature’s neck in her jaws.
Alma’s shoulders had hunched at the sound.
When Farida made her way back to Hektor, she found the snorfle already dead, one of its legs firmly caught in the coiling stem of some plant she had not seen before, its neck in Hektor’s jaws. Hektor snarled as she came closer, lifting up the snorfle corpse as the ivy seemed to wither away. Farida yawned and lay down as Hektor carried the body a few feet away and started eating. Once the custom balgor had cleared the torso of meat and other bits, Hektor walked over to the water trough. Farida pounched on the remains, stripping away the remaining meat on the legs.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:26:27 GMT -6
Alma ended up going into the balgor room once a day regardless of the work she had planned, waiting each time to see how the balgor did as she dispensed the snorfle. She tried to avoid watching the actual killing of the beasts, remembering how more than a few had seemed so playful and happy as she led them to the kennels, but the days that followed proved it difficult to tell when one of the snorfle was about to die.
Balboa was trying. The first few days saw her either tripping up the other two balgor with such skill that Alma was not sure the miasma balgor did not want to save the snorfle instead, or sticking to the background, sullenly watching from where she lay on the ground as Farida and Hektor secured their kills together. A pair of snorfle were released twice at the beginning of two of the days, and Balboa spent the first one being scolded and slashed at, the second waiting for the third snorfle to be released after Farida and Hektor were chewing on their catches.
After that, it was back to one snorfle at a time, Alma worried that the miasma balgor might otherwise always wait for the first two to hunt together, and therefore never learn to fight alongside them. Waiting would do the miasma no good if the foe was a boss creature after all, only leaving her to whatever oversized beast’s mercy once it had worked its way through Farida and Hektor.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:27:18 GMT -6
With the single snorfle method, Balboa would at least run on the fringes as Farida and Hektor hunted the blue beast down, watching from a distance if she did not decide to move a little closer. And she did move closer, but never so much that she came closer to the prey than either the custom or temblor balgor did. She had learned well that blocking either of the balgor would earn her only snarls and cuffs to the head, and so she merely watched the way the other two worked together.
Alma was not sure if that watching was a good thing, the week passing without Balboa so much as extending her claws while the other two hunted together. But there was some minor progress. While Farida might have been tearing at a headless corpse as Balboa chased down a third snorfle, the temblor balgor positioned herself, whether by accident or design, near the wall of the cage. As that week neared its end, Balboa shortened her own hunting time by angling herself slightly differently as she chased the snorfle, driving it towards the temblor balgor. While Farida barely looked up at the trumpeting prey animal as it tried to dodge past her, that moment of change in its direction was enough for Balboa to catch it.
She used Hektor largely the same way, though the custom balgor positioned herself usually at a spot farther from the walls. The snorfle would panic upon coming across another balgor where it thought was a rock it could hide behind, and Balboa would take it.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:28:06 GMT -6
Having watched more of the snorfle killing than she would have liked by that point, Alma hoped the miasma balgor would eventually move on from using her stationary pack mates as blockades soon. She had only been allowed so many snorfle at the time for the sake of food, and she was reluctant to return and pick out more of the beasts to die.
And while Balboa did not seem to pick up on her wishes, stalking around in the background as a new snorfle tumbled out screaming, Hektor seemed just as unhappy with the progress as her human was. The custom balgor grunted and started chasing the snorfle the wrong way as she had done a few times with Farida, though lacking the playfulness that sometimes left the snorfle crying for long after it should have been silenced. The temblor balgor had snorted with annoyance, slowing as she realized the custom balgor was herding it away from her.
Balboa, having been so careful to stay out of their way up until this point, stiffened as she realized the custom balgor was driving the prey beast towards her instead of Farida, the temblor balgor too far back to make use of their usual hunting technique. The miasma balgor took a step back, rumbling as she watched the snorfle nearing the point she would need to intercept it, then took off in a spray of stones and weeds. Like she had done in her earlier attempts to hunt with her pack mates, she ran at her full speed.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:28:57 GMT -6
This time she angled herself as she had seen the other two do, waiting for Hektor to snarl at the snorfle and trigger a burst of speed from the prey beast as it tried to dart away. This time she did not find herself being clawed by an attack she had foolishly ran straight into, this time she did not trip over one of the other balgor and send them spinning across the floor as they snapped at one another. This time, the prey ran into her jaws as she had seen it do to Farida and Hektor so many times, and she caught its neck with her sharp teeth.
Alma looked away as the miasma balgor shook her prize, the shrill screams cutting off as though her earplugs had decided to block all sound at that moment. She felt sick, trying to tell herself that the successful hunt was a good thing, that the blue snorfle they had killed had not looked at her with excitement as she led it and its siblings out of the pick up area. She had never even found out what sexes they were! Why did she have to feel bad about feeding them to the balgor?
She had swallowed the bile raising in her throat, looking away as she hit the button again. She did not look up, not at the roars or the screams, nor at the terrible silence that followed until she was sure the balgor were done eating.
Which, of course, meant she ended up fleeing when she did look up, the custom balgor holding a bloody snorfle that was still moving as Hektor tried to force it through the bars.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:30:08 GMT -6
Alma fed the balgor remotely for a few days after that. It was not as though she had to be in the room with them when they learned to work together, when they learned to kill together and when the snorfle learned what fate they had been brought to. She had cried, she had considered trying to find some other method, but there was none she could be sure of. Yes, the people she had met in the area had told her snorfle were commonly used for their meat, but she doubted anyone would send them while still alive.
And, well, she just really did not want to see the balgor for a bit. In the boss fight, she had worried for them as they had taken hits, might have forfeited if the guy she had hired had not seemed so used to it all, as though she had hired him to pick a few weeds or something. And he had complemented the balgor despite the pair of them not even making up the full size of one of his beasts. She cared about them, wanted to see them do well and maybe nab a few trinkets from the pit, but they were great big monsters that could kill her just as easily as they could the snorfle.
Or, as she remembered with a shudder the snorfle pressed against the bars, its trunk reaching towards her, they might play with her first.
When she went back, the three balgor seemed happy to see her, no doubt waiting for the next bunch of snorfle to be dropped in.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:31:01 GMT -6
It was to be the last three snorfle that day, and she had decided to watch. She had to watch, it was the least she could do beyond offering a small prayer to Light just in case the beasts had souls. And she had to know if the balgor were working together now, or if the miasma balgor was simply a lost cause. Alma did not know which would be worse, to find out the snorfle had died in vain, or that she might need more of them if Balboa showed promise that day.
But she had no intention of staying in there any longer than necessary.
Alma greeted the three balgor as happily as she could manage, asking them, “You lot figure out how not tah go trippin’ over each other?” with a laugh, the three balgor shoving each other and practically tripping over one another as she neared the cage. “Now now, can’t go eatin’ me yet. Still too tough, even fer you, Balboa.” She laughed again as she looked them over for any signs of serious injuries. She had already had to treat Farida for a bite in the past from Balboa, the miasma balgor’s spit having burned away some of the white fur. The healer she had brought in had fixed that in a blink though, and now she could not see a wound on any of the three, old or new.
She walked over to the console after the check, hitting the button three times in quick succession before turning to watch.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:32:02 GMT -6
The snorfle did not die in vain. They did not die painlessly either, but at least it went a lot quicker than Alma had hoped.
Before, with only two balgor in the cage, Farida and Hektor would be forced to hunt the snorfle one at a time, unless the beasts ran together in a false hope that they would be safer together. In that case, the balgor would catch both snorfle at roughly the same time, each taking their chosen kill to a different spot before eating them. It was more common that they would kill the snorfle one at a time, hunting down and leaving the first corpse before slaughtering the second, leaving the one not holding the second snorfle to pick up the rapidly cooling body of the first.
With three however, the snorfle had no choice but to run together.
Alma watched as one tried to break away from the other two, pulling back with a squeal when Balboa snarled at them from that side. That broke the nerve of them all, and they dashed without looking as the three balgor pounced from each side, each claiming one of the snorfle without a moment of hesitation. Alma almost felt like they were trying to show off as Hektor lifted her kill into the air, almost prancing as she walked towards the wall of the cage near Alma. Alma felt sick, squeezing her eyes shut as she remembered the last kill, but forced her eyes back open. She had chosen this.
Thankfully, Hektor had chosen to eat the snorfle in the middle of the cage, its carcass mostly hidden behind a bushy weed.
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Post by Alma on Jul 6, 2021 0:33:48 GMT -6
The last of the snorfle was not the last of the beasts she had brought with her for the balgor to eat. That dubious honor belonged to the beast hidden beyond the widening mouth of the tube, the beast within kicking rhythmically against the metal. She owned a few of this beast’s kind, its exact breed even, in comfortable cages full of tall trees and bushes for it to graze on. Unlike those, however, the long legged beast that slid onto the ground would not live to see another day.
Hopefully.
It felt weird after the snorfle to hope one of the beasts would die, but this one towered over the snorfle. It towered over her as it slowly rose from its knees, rose even taller than her balgor as the thing stood with its neck in the air, gazing down at the three balgor with simple curiosity, unsure what these three things were. Balboa took a step back, then roared, the voices of her sisters joining her. The baakir blinked, pulling its head back, then turned and started to run.
It might have won had there been only one balgor. But the three balgor set out after it, splitting apart as they liked to do with the snorfle, Farida and Balboa running to cut it off. Had there only been two balgor, it may have survived as well, the baakir halting and rearing up so that its head horns scraped the top of the cage, hooves flailing out to strike at the obvious threat. But the two balgor held back, Balboa having learned the wisdom in waiting with the pride, and the hooves slammed back into empty ground as the baakir made a low growl-like noise. Behind it, one leg buckled as Hektor crunched into it, the balgor releasing the baakir and springing back as it tried to kick her away. While it was off balance, Farida and Balboa grabbed onto front legs of their own, the cracking of the bones audible even through her earplugs.
Alma looked away. She did not see the balgor release the legs and then watch as the baakir fell to the ground with a cry, nor could she tell you which of the balgor struck the finishing blow that silenced the thing’s cries.
But at least she was sure the three of them could work together now, right?
[Balboa-Pack Instincts End?]
[Balboa-14.0, Hektor-38.0, Farida-38.0, Alma-256.4]
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Post by Alma on Jul 9, 2021 9:48:01 GMT -6
She did not apologize. There was no need to, the balgor playing happily in their cage, frolicking like kittens a fraction of their size. One held a long leg bone, the bone lasting far longer than any that had hidden away in a snorfle, and gnawed at it like a hound. The other two had taken a longer, thicker one, its jagged ends hidden and cracking inside the jaws of the two balgor seeking to pull it free of the other.
She had fed the baakir an apple. It had seemed like the right thing to do, one final gift before it was confined to the pods, to await being treated like an apple itself. But no, it had not toyed with the apple, and the apple had not screamed as it disappeared into its mouth.
The girl called out to her from the hallways, informing her that she still had to pay, whether the thundergug came all this way to stand in a hallway while she stared at the balgor with a tilted head. Alma sighed, then walked back to the hall, stepping around the mounds of green and gold scattered across the concrete. “Jus’ a lil’ tired. Lotsa sentinel work.” she told the girl with a smile, the younger woman shaking her head and muttering something to the thundergug. Did the beast understand the words? Had the baakir understood hers?
“Usual set up, got all the carrot’s and plants,” Alma said, waving an arm at the scattered mounds as they entered the room. The girl nodded, and Alma walked over to her closet and book. This training required no blood, and so it did not require her.
[Balboa-Hardy Start]
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Post by Alma on Jul 9, 2021 9:49:11 GMT -6
Funny how that worked, Alma thought as she twisted her legs to sit cross legged, opening the book to the first pages. The cover promised adventure, with a screaming man facing some beast, and she wondered what that would sound like as her eyes focused on the first words. Not a death scream, no doubt something a bit more inspiring than a scream that begged for safety. Books like that would not sell, and she had no interest in them.
Balboa cared not for any stories the human, their human as she had fondly begun to think of the nearly hairless creature, was reading, only that she claim the leg of the beast they had taken down days ago. Farida would not release the other end for easy chewing, blue eyes squinted in mirth as the temblor balgor rumbled and sought to slide the bone from between her teeth. Balboa rumbled back, jaws locked on her end as she sought to do the same, knowing her victory over the white balgor would only make the marrow more tasty. Neither paid any heed to the hulking beast that stepped into the room outside of their cage, the combatants ears deaf to all but the sound a yelp, of loose gravel that would be her cue to pull with all her might.
Hektor, with no one to fight but the casing of bone, alerted them with a snarl of her own. The bone stayed in her mouth as the lip raised and lowered, less impressed by the intruder than simply warning the other two. Farida and Balboa glanced at the beast, the former dismissing it with a snort, the latter dropping her end of the bone.
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Post by Alma on Jul 9, 2021 9:49:55 GMT -6
The thundergug was a familiar sight to the custom and temblor balgor, their interest in the beast mirroring Alma’s as the human continued to read her book without so much as a glance at the thing stomping around the room. The interest of those balgor was in bones rather than books, and Farida dragged her prize a few meters away before plopping down to begin gnawing.
Balboa stared at the beast, bone forgotten as it paced around them. It stared with two unblinking eyes, massive things that seemed to take up all of its face as Balboa quailed before it, unable to so much as cough out a warning to her sisters. But what would a warning do when faced with something like this, with eyes the size of boulders and steps that caused the very stones to quake as she did? It was a fear similar to that she had felt when she first noticed her sisters, back when they were not sisters but fierce defenders of a domain that she could not escape. But not her, not even they could hope to stand up to something as massive as the scaly monster that circled around their cage.
The miasma balgor could not do much more than watch as the thing continued circling them. When would it attack them? She wanted to call her sisters to her, to flee with them at her side so they might all escape together, but she could not tear her eyes away from the beast.
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Post by Alma on Jul 9, 2021 9:50:42 GMT -6
Hektor felt uneasy. She had no reason that she could see, so she had struck out the feeling, gnawing at it like she did with the bone between her paws. It had not been her sisters playing over their bone, her own having been claimed with a snarl and a swat to those tempted by it, for they would not try to steal hers. She had fidgeted, ears twitching at her sisters play-snarls and rumbling, long before the fat thing had reappeared. She did not fear the fat thing, but her unease had grown in the minutes before it appeared, fighting her attempts to claw her way free.
A glance at the beast had inspired no wave of unease, and so she had returned to scraping at the cracks in the white with her tongue, tasting the marrow as she tried to figure out why she felt so uncomfortable. The feelings lessened as she chewed, and she closed her eyes for a particularly hard crunch that should splitter bone and let her feed. At that same moment, something hit the bone, a higher pitched growl accompanying the noise as it jumped free of her loose jaws.
Farida had chosen a spot farther from where she had fought with the miasma for the bone. Hektor, so certain of her ownership, had not.
The miasma balgor tripped over the bone as she had backed away from the thundergug, never aware that she had even started to do so. The feeling of something moving as it caught her hind legs panicked her, and she turned her head to her attacker while keeping her eyes on the circling beast.
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