riverviewlogs | CONVOY

[Top-levels for mingling go here!]

[The trip couldn't be perfectly painless, of course. The land outside the Quarantine is wild and untamed, full of creatures of all shapes and sizes -- and some of them are hungry.]

[As evening darkens the trees and undergrowth around them, faint lights like flickering fire occasionally illuminate the forest. Never in the same place twice, always hanging far enough back that investigating would put an unacceptable distance between the curious person and the trucks they ought to be protecting.]

[In fact, those lights are fire-wolves, canines with molten teeth and fiery breath -- and the two over there are only drawing attention while the rest of the pack circles around, only announcing their presence when they lunge out of the brush in attack.]

[About a mile out from the projected location of the small community they seek, Roy calls a halt, the better to address the gathered expedition members.]

We don't know what's been happening to them or what we can expect, so I'd like to just request we all keep weapons sheathed and stay utterly non-confrontational until it's absolutely clear we have no other choice. This includes in the face of weapons being drawn at us.

If anyone's not comfortable with risking injury through deliberately lowering your defenses like that, you're totally welcome to stay in the trucks or out of the way without any judgment whatsover. It is dangerous and not terribly rational, so I'm not going to insist anyone other than myself holds to it.

Natasha turns up early, already suited up and ready to go. Roy never got back to her with details, but she doesn't judge him for it. Not really. Probably busy. That's one thing she can understand. This place lends itself to a very specific kind of chaos. So she just turns up early and figures she'll feel things out before they get on the road. She's not sure if she's supposed to drive, is confident she can handle it if she is, but would still like to familiarize herself with the trucks and the route ahead of time.

She's kept tabs on who else responded to his request for help. Those who did so publicly, in any case. She hopes the onion shows up. She even kind of hopes that Scott shows up. Something familiar can't hurt. Or maybe it can. Over-thinking is not a productive use of her time. A productive use of her time, right now, is checking her charge levels and that she's carrying as much ammunition as possible without compromising her movement.

He'd been expecting to be the first one here, but what do you know... there was someone more invested in looking prepared than him. Which is fine by him, he has some company while he waits for others to show up.

"Don't believe we've met." His voice is monotone, but by how close he's chosen to stand and something about the way he offers his pack of cigarettes after lighting one with a snap of his fingers, he might be flirting. Who knows, really. "You a friend of Greenhilt's?"

"I owe you an apology and I need your help," was how Roy greeted her, one hand rubbing his forehead as he approached. "The apology is for not getting the information to you in a timely fashion, and the help I need is figuring out how I can do that on these devices."

All things considered, Roy felt he had been navigating a complicated device that he couldn't distinguish from incredibly complex magic with reasonable aplomb -- but when they'd told him to just forward the files on, that was where he got completely lost.

"Never met the man." Natasha's voice doesn't have much more inflection. She mirrors, and this is a fairly straight forward mission they're going on, she's preparing to be professional. She waves one hand in the air in front of her, dismissing the pack of cigarettes. "No thanks."

She turns and lowers the hood of the truck. She's gotten a decent look, and she's confident that it's familiar enough that she could do a quick field repair of any of the hoses, or cannibalize one truck to fix the other if something goes more catastrophically wrong."And you? Do you know him well?" Natasha already knows that Dodger doesn't know Roy from their conversation on the network, but she's not used to giving up information she doesn't have to.

He shrugs, smoothly returning the pack to his pocket and leaning against the truck when she closes it up, "I'm sort of a new face. For the moment, it's safe to assume I don't know anyone."

Having been displaced from his usual easy stream of information, he feels a bit rusty with the role of a common mercenary. But he's not about to try and hide what he is, as long as he can keep himself out of jail one way or another.

"But I figure if whatever reward we get for this isn't big enough I can probably find someone willing to buy a live specimen or two of whatever sad fucks we're supposed to be helping out here... so why not tag along." He's kind of joking... how serious he is about any of the fucked up things he says tends to depend on the reactions he gets from saying them.

Scott had every intention to show up early, but, well, yeah. He's Ant Man. And he needs coffee before he's functional. So here he is, 20 minutes late but with a fresh...uh, whatever this place calls Starbucks.

But hey, he's given the suit a good once-over, at least, so he's ready to go and do this thing!

"Hey, gonna be cool fighting on the same side, huh?" And not, you know, having that whole 'am I a jerk if I punch a girl if she's a trained assassin' debate again.

"Hey, guys?" Someone had to go out to take a piss, but only made it so far, just beyond the perimeter of their campfire. "I don't wanna sound cliche or anything, but I think we got trouble."

As if summoned by Natasha's thought, the onion appears in all her plate mail-clad glory. She's even given her armor a bit of a polish, and sharpened her sword in preparation of the mission.

She arrives just a few minutes before the agreed upon arrival time. Suiting up takes a while, and she's not exactly the swiftest person around in this armor, but she made a real effort not to be late to this. It wouldn't do to make a poor first impression, after all - not when she's the sole representative of the Knights of Catarina!

"Oh, hello there! Natasha, was it?" She asks, her tone relatively cheerful and friendly. "You signed up for the mission as well?"

The first reply Scott gets comes in the form of metal shifting against metal, as Sieglinde sits up from her resting position in order to get a better look at what he was shouting about.

And that's when she noticed the two glowing lights, approaching her ally.

"I see them." She says, drawing her sword and lifting herself to her feet as swiftly as she can. It isn't a quiet affair, but it's faster than one might expect as the heavily armored knight approaches him from behind-

- or attempts to, at least. She only gets about halfway there before one of the flanking wolves dives out of the bushes and tackles her, its fiery breath charring the front of her freshly-polished armor as it knocks her onto her side.

"Wha-GOOD HEAVENS! What is this thing?!"

Well...

[There's a slight hesitance in Sieglinde's voice at first, but it leaves as quickly as it had appeared.]

...I won't doff my armor, but I see no harm in attempting such diplomacy. I'd rather not be mistaken as slavers or kidnappers, and a peaceful approach can only help deter that.

Stealth: apparently not on the agenda for the day. But hey, he's not complaining--if it's normal wild animals, noise should scare 'em off.

Right?

A.....pparently not, as one of the things lunges in a line behind him, dashing toward the armored, uh, armor, there. Okay, this is cool. He can do this. It's clobberin' ti--oh wait, wrong catchphrase.

"Something that's gonna regret some poor life choices!" Okay, that's a sucky catchphrase, too, but give him a break. It's time to shrink down and become an ant-sized punching machine! Take THAT, wolf thing!

"There's more of them behind us," Roy said in a carrying tone as he hefted his sword to stare down the rear lines. "Try to keep them away from the trucks -- I have no idea what they're after, but I'd rather not find out!"

One of the wolves darted forward to snarl flames at the fighter, who, lacking any meaningful Reflex save to get out of the way, simply shoved straight through them to hack a great gash into the wolf's side.

Whoa, whoa, no one's saying take off the armor! [No getting crazy here, Sieglinde. Roy is at least as big an advocate of wearing it as she is (even if his is not QUITE so appearance-defining.] I'm sure they'll understand we had to take sensible precautions in transit and stepping into an unknown situation. If not, that will raise some very valuable questions anyway.

Well Shigeru is a bit more quiet than everyone else but that's just due to the fact he can't speak. He is also bad at socializing but he'll manage through this as they're all working as a team together.

Though he'll start to see the others show after a time. He hasn't really met any of them and this is probably a good way to get to know others here so he'll start off with whoever he happens to be closest to at the time. He'll give a friendly wave and smile as he types up something on his phone for them to read.

"Hello it's nice to meet you! I don't think we've met before, I'm Shigeru Miyata. I'll be helping with healing and fighting on the side. I brought some extra medical supplies as well, so don't be afraid to ask if you need something!

Dodger had noticed the man being quiet, but it doesn't take him long to notice pauses where even a shy person would pipe up. It barely surprises him when the man starts typing instead, and communicating that way.

He disappears with a pop near Shigeru, a flash of sparks floating past him and somewhere along the way the phone disappears from his hand. Dodger appears next to him, reading through the message with a lazy expression before handing it back. He's pretty sure Shigeru had intended to 'speak' to someone else, but he's got Shigeru's attention now and that's what matters.

"Can you hear?"

Iunno about you, I'm all for making the girl strip.

[He's laughing quietly at his own joke, but it's clear enough from his tone he's not entirely kidding. It's been clear enough through the trip that he's not big on being 'non-confrontational', but someone's going to have to specifically ask him to stay with the trucks. And then make sure he actually listens.]

Huh. Roy had not considered this use for these devices, and now that he'd been awakened to it he actually found himself respecting them somewhat more. Far more efficient than a journal or a chalkboard or something like that.

"Roy Greenhilt," he said, offering a hand. "We communicated."

[Jamie she is underage and sweating like a pig underneath all that armor, what are you doing.

She huffs at the scarred man's comment and crosses her arms.]

How rude! Not even if you were the last man in the world, you scoundrel.

[You can practically hear her scowling at him through the visor of that helmet.]

Everything Dodger does happens so fast that Shigeru can't properly react until he's handing his phone back to him. Shigeru's face goes pale white while watching him touch it however. There's a look of dismay on his features the longer Dodger handles his phone. Shigeru might flinch away when his phone is offered back to him. It's probably obvious, from the white gloves on his hands, that he's not exactly the most normal of people. It's even more noticeable when he takes out a sanitizing wipe and takes his phone back that way.

Sorry Dodger he isn't going to respond until his phone is clean, which takes a couple of seconds to do, mostly because his ocd is pretty bad still. But he does know they other is waiting for a reply and that gets him to snap back slightly to respond.

Sorry! Yes I...can hear! [ Though now he looks totally awkward and embarrassed at his display before the other man. ]

The longer Shigeru spends trying to clean off the phone - really, he's a gross person but not on the outside - the more it dawns on him that he's just set off some sort of neurosis. Not that it shows on his face that he feels any regret... he just raises a brow, pausing to read the message.

"So you're mute." He hesitates, trying to decide how to handle this. Honestly? He never cares about people's disabilities, it's their problem if they can't keep up with the rest of the world. But it just wastes his time if he makes the guy cry. He lets out a little huff before speaking. "Name's Dodger. You might need those supplies, I'm a high-offense kinda guy. You any good at military hand signals?"

Can you feel Natasha rolling her eyes, Scott? Can you feel it across the air between the two of you. "Stop trying to be witty, Lang. Just hit it!" As though demonstrating what she means, Natasha lunges out of the way and twists her body in the air, bringing one charged baton down hard on the creature's flank. Unfortunately, something makes the beast twist away from her, and she misses the shot for the base of its spine she'd intended. Still, there's a snarl of pain and the unmistakable scent of singed fur. She's at full charge and she'll get it with one solid hit, she just needs to be faster and, most importantly, to get a handle on the way her improvised team fights very quickly so she can anticipate their movements.

This pack is not reacting to only her, but to all of them. That means the only way to know how they will move is to know how the entire team will move.

One slim eyebrow raises imperceptibly, but the scowl of displeasure on her face is far more obvious. "No one in this city is going to want to keep a monster from beyond the perimeter, and I very much doubt that anyone is going to let you sell one of the people we're heading out there to help." What she actually means is that she won't let him. If the idea of slavery, of owning something with intelligence on a level to set it apart from the beasts the Guard protects the city from, isn't repulsive to him... she'll offer a different kind of persuasion. Even those who have no respect for humanity and free will tend to have a healthy desire to keep all their blood on the inside of their body.

CONVOY

Mingles and Travels

Random Encounter

Arrival

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Random Encounter (I am back from family crisis time!)

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Re: Mingles and Travels

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