Well, that's a conundrum....

[Vega]

18th Trial of Cylus during Arc 720

It was never-ending. Vega was starting to feel like it would literally never end and, that was a bit of a worry since she was Faldrun's daughter. That meant, she supposed, that she might still be here in a hundred arcs, or a hundred after that. But, she supposed, the good thing was that Arlo Creede would be there with her. Her husband was busy, getting the food and supplies ready and sorted and Vega knew that this was an important - a vital role in the maintaining of this place.

But they'd talked about the need to protect the well and so, as she'd tried to do once before, Vega was making her way there to assess the situation. The issue here was, as far as she could see, that there was no one person ~ nor even one group ~ in charge. Storm's Edge was under the control of the Lightning Knights, in theory, but in reality, nothing was actually happening there. So, there were knights, there were volunteers, and there was chaos. Really, it was a bit of a recipe for disaster, and Vega knew it. But all she could do was be her best, do her best. Nothing more was possible for the redhead, after all.

So, with determined steps, she made her way towards the well. It was, Arlo told her, the sole source of water for the place and therefore, it was vital that it was protected. Vega had some ideas about ways that they could achieve that and she was making her way to the well to have a look at the surrounding area. She was thinking about ways that she could minimise the amount of work which this protection took, and hopefully still be efficient.

Yet, thoughts of that were banished from her mind as she heard the noises of fighting. "Pickle my pink possum, don't this never stop!?" Vega said, grumbling to herself as she made her way through the courtyard and started to pick up speed. There were frogernickels, a toadernickel and some new-looking-nickels, too. Vega grimaced and pulled her bow. "Trouble at th'well!" Vega cried out, and she shot at the creatures as she went charging towards them.

This situation at Storm's Edge had taught Vega a lot of things - one of which was that she needed to learn the terrain, because it was so important. And in this moment, as she rounded the corner, she realised something immediately. "They're attackin' the well! Defend the well!" Damnit, but these things were clever.

More clever, Vega thought as she ran forward, than she'd considered. In that moment, she decided - she was going to bite the leather and actually do some research on them. Because there were just a few too many coincidences now. "But I'm gonna kill yer ugly mug first!" The redhead was very aware that the cry she gave was as much to reassure those around her - and herself - as it was anything to do with the creatures.

[Vivian Shiryu]

Vivian checked a few items off the list in front of her, then let out breath. "Okay, the main gate is still our biggest weakness. We'll have to find a way to shore that up or close it off, otherwise it'll be a lot harder to hold this place." she muttered to herself, before noting another potential weakness. "The well is also the only water source we currently have. So that'll have to be secured and we'll have to look at secondary water sources as well. Perhaps a warden power can help with that." she muttered to herself. Then she heard sounds of fighting from outside and let out a growl. "Fins, go scout while I put on my armor." she said. The little shark dog nodded and headed out the window as Vivian began to put on her armor.

"More beasts, some look like they've got poison they can spit. They're attacking the well." he said, the water spirits response sharp and crisp. Vivian's eyes widened at that thought, realizing how dangerous it could be if the creatures managed to poison the well. Fortunately, Vivian's armor was designed to not be particularly difficult or time consuming to get on, so she had drawn her sword and was out the door pretty quickly after Fins gave his report. There were three types of beast, but the only one that really concerned her were the poison spitting ones, the rest were getting to be business as usual in Storm's Edge.

Vivian noticed Vega approaching as well, her sister was definitely proving to be one of Rharne's best defenders during the ongoing semi-siege they were in, and Vivian was glad to see her. "Fins, make an Oasis by the knights!" she called to her partner, and the shark dog nodded and dove into the ground near the knights, the beginnings of a Brightgleam Oasis forming where he had gone into the ground. "Knights, dip your weapons in the spring, they'll be more effective against these creatures." she said, keeping that she wasn't entirely certain of that fact to herself for the time being.

Then she used Rising Lightning and lept at the closed of the poison spitting monsters, hitting it from the side and aiming her sword at its eye. Her sword went into the eye, and she used Conduit while her blade was still in the socked, eliciting an ear splitting shriek of pain from the creature before it backed off in pain. Vivian pulled her sword from the beast, then dodged a glob of poisonous spit from another beast. "Focus on the poison spitters, they don't have to get close to contanimate the well." she called, before maneuvering so she could charge another of the beasts from the side.

[Vega]

18th Trial of Cylus during Arc 720

It had transpired that Vivian was her sister.

Or, at least, Vivian had been fathered by the same useless excuse for an Immortal that she had.

It didn't - in Vega's mind - make any difference at all. It wasn't relevant or important and it meant nothing. But what did matter to Vega was that Vivian was here, she was fighting, and that she was doing. And that meant that the red-haired woman shot the Knight a grin. "Mornin'!" Vega said, cheerily, as she saw that Vivian was also here, fighting. "Poison-spittin'-nickels! That's not fair!" Vega didn't seem perturbed by them, in fairness, and she moved to start getting them away from the well itself. "Come on you big ugly pumpernickels!" The pumpernickels had been split into a quite complex taxonomy by the strange red-head. There were the frogernickels, and there were quite a few of them here, but Vega wasn't too bothered about them.

"Frogernickels in the face, remember! Hit 'em where they're squishy!" Most of the people in Storm's Edge had a good grasp of the frogernickels now, Immortals knew that there'd been enough of them, but these were new and thus, they got a name which said what they did and had 'ernickels' after it. Because they were all pumpernickels. It was entirely sensible and obvious, should you have the dubious pleasure of living inside Vega's brain.

What she did, though, was possibly crazy but, at the same time, it mostly worked. There were four of the poison-spitting spiternickels and Vega leaped, using her acrobatic skill - and she "bopped" each of them. She knew that she couldn't take the time to fight them in this maneuver, but what she did do was draw their attention. And then, she moved to stand alongside Vivian. "Tag, spiternickels," she grinned as the four poison-spitters rushed the two daughters of Faldrun. "Come on you uglies!" And with that, Vega moved with her Moral-born sibling, taking on the spitters - two each, for her and Vivian.

Stepping forward, she twisted out of the way as one of the creatures spat at her, just a slight twist was all it took.

And, as she moved in, slicing at the strange-looking almost mutated frogernickel looking thing, Vega let out a chortle. "Missed!" She sounded not unlike a child in a school yard.

"You a'righ' there?" She called to Vivian as the creature aimed to spit again and she lunged forward, arcing her sword across it's open mouth and slicing it's head more or less in half.

[Vivian Shiryu]

Vivian laughed as Vega pointed out how unfair the poison spitters were. "Yeah, but they'll need a better name than that. So what do you have for them? Poisonickels?" Vivian said, her tone not quite as easy as Vega's. But then, Vivian was generally a more somber person than her half-sister, so it made sense that light-hearted banter didn't come as easily to her. She did note, however, that Vega was also moving to keep the spitters away from the well. "Dip your sword in the water if you need it, I think it'll help with these guys." she said, taking a swing and approaching frogernickels face and taking out the eye.

By then, Vega had bopped each of the remaining spitters and rejoined Vivian. "Ah, spitternickels. Less obvious, I suppose." she said, noting that all four spitternickels were bearing down on them. "Oh, for me? You shouldn't have." she said, her tone dry as she used Rising Lightning and crashed into one of her two spitternickels shield first. Unlike the regular frogernickels, Vivian didn't elect to wedge her shield into the spitters mouth. Given the poison spit, that just seemed rather unwise. Instead she dodged to the side of the spitternickel she had just slammed into and brought the bottom point of her heater shield into the creatures eye.

Once it was wedged in, she jerked it to the side to pull the wound she had just made up a little bit, then reversed her grip on Shiryu and started stabbing repeatedly at the wound. After three strikes, she got her sword wedged in into the beast as well. With that done, she straightened both her sword and shield so they were pointed into the spitternickel, then used Rising Lightning to jump forward again, driving her sword and shield further into the beast and into its brain, killing it.

Putting her foot against the dead spitternickel, Vivian use Rising Lightning to leap backwards, bringing her gear with her. "Oh me? I'm just fine." Vivian said in response to Vega's question as her second spitter started to get a glob of spit going. "Why? You getting tired over there?" she asked as she gathered lightning in her hand and threw it at the spit glob as the beast was getting ready to launch it. The resultant shock didn't kill the spitternickel, but it certainly seemed to hurt, and it definitely kept the spitternickel from firing that glob of spit. "Shame we can't spread that around." she muttered, before charing the second spitter.

[Vega]

18th Trial of Cylus during Arc 720

She didn't know what having a sister was like - and she wasn't likely to find out now. As they were both adults, Vega and Vivian would never share the childhood experiences of siblings. In truth, Vega was close to her cousins, who were more or less like brothers to her - including the almost constant fighting and scratching at each other. So, the fact that the pair of them shared a father made no difference to her but there was a lot to be said for the fact that Vivian was a level-headed, straight-talking woman and Vega had to admit, she liked her. While Vega refused, point blank, to believe that she and Vivian and Varlum might get on because they were all three Faldrun's children, Vega also had to admit that she liked them both.

And mostly, Vega didn't like people.

Still, Faldrun's daughters fought together, and soon they were standing together, the bodies of the creatures they were fighting strewn around them. "I dunno," Vega said, grinning, as she turned her gaze to Vivian. "I've never seen no one get cooked while they're gettin' killed, but you could manage it with that there lightnin'-fling-flang-thing you do." There was a thought. "I'll mention it to Arlo. He's the cook o'the two of us." That was, it had to be said, something of an understatement.

It might be a whole new means of selling oneself as a mercenary, Vega thought, as she cleaned off her sword. The creatures had been dispatched by the pair of them and, looking around, there was no doubt that the pair of them had been efficient. "Right," she said. "There's bits of these things hangin' around all over the place round here." She prodded one of them with her boot and then sighed. "We need to collect them up, an' take them to the medical woman here. She's lovely, Gennadiya. She's got this whole thing goin' on where she cuts them up an' finds stuff out."

That was the extent of Vega's surgical knowledge, it must be said.

Glancing around, she spied some boxes which would work for storing the corpses. "Lets get these formerly bad-boys, now dead-boys in here an' see what they teach us about spitternickels, shall we?"

[Vivian Shiryu]

Date here....

Fortunately, electrocuting the glob of spit in the last spitter-nickel's mouth had pretty much put an end to it's desire to try spitting, and it wasn't able to bite through it's shield. Vivian stabbed the nickel in the jaw, just where the jaw-hinge was, and then used Rising Lightning to leap forward, severing that side of the jaw completely. Before she could finish the job, the injuries and the bleeding finished it off, and by that time, Vega was done with her part of the fighting and talking about cooking the nickels. "Oh, I'm sure he could find a way to cook them. I'm not sure how good they would taste, and I'm fairly certain they're not meant for eating, though. Could work in a pinch, though, like eating bear." she said, taking out a rag that she kept tucked under her breastplate and using it to wipe blood and poison off her sword.

When Vega started talking about getting the spitternickels cut up, Vivian had to pause a moment before she realized what Vega was talking about. "Oh, the autopsies. Yeah, best get them in. I want to know what this poison is and how to treat it, above all else. Even keeping them out of the water supply, I get the feeling this stuff is nasty." she said, before shaking her head. "Thank Ilaren we've got wells though. If we were relying on a river for our water supply, they could contaminate it upstream somewhere and we'd never be able to do anything about it." she said, grimacing slightly. "And yeah, I've met Gennadiya. Nice girl, made her a Warden even, since she's so dedicated to defending Rharne. Well, Lovalus made her a Warden, but I handled the initiation, is what I mean."

When Vega pointed out the boxes, Vivian nodded, then gestured to the rest of the knights around them. "All right, lets get these bodies and body parts rounded up and take them to researchers. Don't touch any of that poison with your bare hands." she said, before she grabbed a box and started loading corpses. "At least these are smaller though. Getting those Ramernickels in, that really sucked." she said as they worked.

[Pig Boy]

Player Name: Vega

Points awarded: 15
Magic xp: 0

Knowledge: None requested.


Renown: 10

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriately to PC's level

Player Name: Vivian

Points awarded: 15
Magic xp: none

Knowledge:

Blades Master: 1 Knowledge
Shields Expert: 2 Knowledges

Renown: 10

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriately to PC's level

Notes: Well this was a good bit of nickel butchery. I think despite their short acquaintance as siblings, Vega and Vivian have a good rapport with each other for that. Even though Vega doesn't hold their blood rleation to be an important factor of that, it's interesting how the three siblings found each other in the big old world, and more than that get along together.

The nickels names were very descriptive, and I found little need to get details in the writing itself, apart from the 'frogernickels' 'ramernickels' and 'pumpernickels'. I just get an instant view in my head of what they looked like.

It was a good idea to defend the well agains these creatures. Whatever poison they were using couldn't have been good... I just wonder where the dissection/autopsy of these creatures led them to, if anywhere. It seems like a very late submission

Good writing aside from that!

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!