Author Topic: CDDA: Adventures in Cataclysm  (Read 33252 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

saltmummy626

  • Admin
  • POST LORD
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,463
  • Dapperness +20/-7
  • Lord of Gulgatha
    • View Profile
Re: CDDA: Adventures in Cataclysm
« Reply #5115 on: January 31, 2019, 12:51:11 am »
[Written with a dragon while a volleyball watched from the hedge outside the window.]

The walk from where Branches had given her admission was a short one, but to the homunculus it felt like an hour. She was nervous, a bit squirmy, and she'd spent the time after describing how Helen and Steinar had taken them down, leaving out her own part in the whole ordeal or the fact of her strength entirely. The sense of fear and the desire to flee was mostly gone now. At least the need to flee because of being in danger was gone. Branches now wanted to flee because 'he' was just too large. 'He' being Hector. From the moment he took off his helmet, a sensation of awe had come over her along with a desire to be close to him. Listen to him talk and look at him, but when he talked her mind would wander off imagining what he might say for other subjects and when he looked her way she couldn't help but look away. Branches didn't really understand, but Illiana or Helen would. Illiana because she knew things and Helen because she'd been a young lady once and that youth wasn't exactly behind her.

"So..." Branches began during a low in the discussion between the two men, "what will you do when you have these guys? Just questions?"

They had reached the other end of the bridge at this point, and the men had been left tied up just around the next bend on a wide spot by the side of the road where long gone people had pulled off to enjoy the river in the world before the cataclysm. Floyd scratched the chin beneath his bushy grey beard and looked to Hector.
 
"Maybe question em' a bit? What do you think Hec? From the sound of things, these boys are more dildos than desperados. You think they'll be worth turning in if they don't have any Hell's Raiders connections?" He asked.

It'd been only a short walk so far, Hector already thinking over just how to handle this situation, when he found it hard not to crack up at Floyd's description of the captured bandits. "Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd hear from somebody." he remarked, leading the way towards the bend. "If we can reason with them sure. Clear things up...but if Helen couldn't talk them down then I'm not so sure it'd go well."

Branches mulled that over to herself. Helen couldn't get them to talk because they were either brave or stupid. She thought maybe Hector and Floyd could do better, but before the strange new feelings stewing around in her thoughts could convince her of that, her inherent knowledge kicked in. The bandits would say just about anything if threatened, "confession under duress" as it were. Helen had only pressed them a little, and they'd resisted.

She was going over this in her head, pushing aside everything to try and work her way over the coming interrogation analytically, when they finally rounded the bend.

"God, look at all that underwear! I can't believe Nip hasn't noticed yet." Floyd balked when he caught sight of the carts. Hector ignored him. As soon as the carts were in sight, he'd felt something off. Branches too in fact, but Hector was the first to voice the problem.

"I thought you said there were two of them?" He growled. Branches flinched a little, then ran to the carts and the man laying on his side in the grass next to one. The bandit was grinning like a moron and seemed to be in the process of working his bonds loose.

As soon as he realized something was off, he rushed ahead, shield held up and a hand reaching for his sword. In his mind he cursed himself for having left his helm back at the forge, feeling rather exposed due to not knowing if the other bandit was lurking in the treeline...or worse, if he'd come back with friends.

Floyd likewise followed behind, his longer-barreled gift from Catnip clearing leather with unnatural speed, already keeping an eye on any sign of movement in the treeline around them, but he couldn't quite get a bead on the one bandit left behind. Not only had Branches already rushed ahead, but the knight was close behind as well. But Conquest would prove more than adequate for any trouble lurking in the woods, just as his old pieces had been for countless bandits before The Shifting.

In his fluted plate armor, noticeably bright gauntlets, and a kite shield of different size and pattern to the old mansion find long since ruined. He looked almost nothing like the Hector that any former Hell's Raider would've been familiar with. The only pieces of his old gear to have survived this long were his sabatons, great helm, and sword. The first was hardly a distinctive feature, the second had been touched up with dents and scratches repaired countless times, but would've been distinctive had he brought it.

His sword however...weathered, scarred, chipped and worn blunt time and time again, only to have its flaws polished and ground away, its heat treatment renewed to forge-weld out a crack and a bent blade at least once, that would be the most overt surviving piece of his equipment. A typical replica of the knightly swords so common through many of the Crusades, now pointed at the struggling bandit's throat. "Hold, if you want to keep your head."

Branches took a step back and gave an uncharacteristic gasp. For a moment, she believed the knight was actually just going to kill the man. Instead, he had simply warned him. Put steel to the man and menaced him like Helen and Steinar had not. It was undeniably cool in her opinion.

"Jesus man, calm down. Hey, that's fuckin' cold." The bandit husked, "Who'r you supposed to be? King Arthur and Wyatt Earp?" The man was stupid, the dumber of the two in Branches opinion. The homunculus dropped to her knees behind the man and cinched the loosened bindings back into place and gave them another couple knots for good measure. "Where's the other one?" She demanded gently. His silence was expected. Unlike Helen, Hector was not content with silence and pressed his blade in closer.

"Little lady asked you a question pard'." Floyd growled, not taking his eyes off the tree line. There were unfamiliar forms in the woods, not exactly human ones. Varying shapes and sizes hardly moving at all and somehow familiar. Floyd was old and maybe his hands gave him hell now and again, but his eyes were as sharp as always. He picked out movement in the underbrush and zeroed in on it. Branches noted the movement and put a hand out.

"It's mine, please don't break it..."

"Yeah," The bandit heckled, "don't hurt the little girls little shit dolls. Little girls need their dolls, need-" Hector pushed the sword in hard enough to draw just the barest trickle of blood. "Goddamn, stop. Fuck man."

Hector seemed to be glowering down at the man, something between a reflexive urge to behead the man he barely suppressed, and a form of disappointment altogether less fatherly than how he'd looked at Branches. "Where did your little friend go?" he asked calmly, sword still held right where it'd make every word spoken just the slightest bit uncomfortable.

The bandit tried to move his head back away from the blade, a weapon bearing the scars of use and repair as points of pride to its owner, and suddenly got an inkling of what he was dealing with. He himself hadn't been around when Yellow Jacket and the other chiefs had run afoul of a harder group of survivors than they'd been prepared for, but even the sparse groups in the north from which he had been had heard of the Iron Marshal, The Blade of Sodom, and all the others that followed them.

"You ain't... the Marshal... are ya?" he rasped. Hector smirked, and that was enough for the bandit, "Shiiiiiit..." The long drawn out expletive was enough to convince Hector that the mans hope of getting out of this alive, let alone a shot at retribution, was now dead in the water. "Went to get Yellow Jacket, she's gonna raise some fuckin' hell when she gets here. Nobody robs Yellow Jacket in the night and gets away with it, you'll fuckin' see." There didn't seem to be too much conviction behind his threats though, his priorities had just changed from escaping and getting Yellow Jacket so they could stomp all over the little one eyed freak and her weird friends, to just keeping himself from having his head unceremoniously parted from his shoulders.

"And she won't." Hector answered. "We'll handle disciplining her as needed. Helen especially, no doubt, You weren't the only ones who had things stolen from you." Floyd watched the man, a calm expression on his face as the knight continued his threats. "You have your possessions to return. I'll give you one chance. Do so, and tell this Yellow Jacket who is responsible for this place."

"If you don't, if you return to cause trouble, you've more than just a Marshal to deal with. The Blade of Sodom, as God's Army calls her, makes her home here too. As does..." Hector stopped for a moment, looking back to Floyd. "You know, you would think someone would've thought up an epitaph for you too by now. Have they...?"

Floyd shrugged, "Dunno. Heard a few things, 'steel rider'  seems to go around a lot." He said. Branches could tell he wasn't very interested, but these people being well known enough to have titles was pretty cool. Hector made to cut the man loose but branches stopped him and worked the knots loose again. It was a little annoying, having just tightened them and then having to untie them, but Hector knew what he was doing.

The knight pulled the man to his feet and checked him over for weapons. "If you're looking for weapons then you're out of luck bro. Mask lady already took my piece, only weapon I got now is my meat cannon." The bandit joked, keeping his hands where Hector could see them.

"That's fine," Hector said dismissively, "I can't imagine it's a very powerful weapon anyway."

The bandit laughed, seemingly taking no offense. He couldn't really be offended anyway, they had spared him so he could send a message. It would be shitty having to tell Yellow Jacket what had gone down, she'd almost certainly start screaming at him, but if his partner had made it then he wouldn't exactly be the one getting raked over hot coals would he? The idiots were actually going to let him take one of the carts back. Shit, he wasn't going to get worked over for this. If anything, it would just encourage Yellow Jacket to push in.

The daffy smile that had begun to form on the bandits face died and he glared at the knight. Did he know that? Did he know that the warning might just antagonize Yellow Jacket and get her to come at him? The sneer Hector gave him strongly suggested that he did know. Maybe even counting on it. After a bit of judging, the bandit picked out a cart he knew was filled mostly with his gangs stuff and moved off. Hector watched him go and as soon as the Bandit was out of sight, gestured for Floyd to follow and watch. Branches stopped them with a wave of her hand. She knew what was up, keep an eye on the man and make sure he didn't turn back. One of the little figures, a small clay ape like creature, trundled from the woods and waited at Branches heel. At the giving of some unseen order, the creature took off after the bandit.

"So..." Branches said anxiously looking to Hector and Floyd. Hector hmmed a bit quietly. "They're not to be persuaded so easily. Funny, usually it's Helen that tries talking sense into the enemy first..." he joked.

"Aye, but Ms. Mckinnon is a more reasonable sort. Some people just don't respond to sugared threats and need somethin' a bit harder to think about." Floyd said seriously.

"True. I suppose we'll need to stay on alert. If we're lucky their leader will be smarter than that one was, and moreover that they figure out what trying to retaliate entails..." he remarked, before looking back to Branches. "You doing alright?"

"Hmm?" Branches hummed, snapping back from deep confused fantasies in which a certain knight fought off bandits and monstrosities, "O-oh, yeah. I still have more stuff to bring back to you guys though..." She pointed to the remaining cart. While she'd been at the farm, someone from the hall had stopped by to grab the last load of the Hall's property. After the bandit had grabbed one of the carts, there were just the two left. One loaded with a lingerie stores worth of ladies under things, and the other filled with a mix and match of bandit and farm property.

"Okay then, we can help with that. Floyd, your old back up to the task?" Hector volunteered. Floyd harrumphed and took up the handles of one of the carts. "Alright, we'll get all this put back to the farm where it belongs and you..." Hector went on, "Can make sure it gets back to it's owners." Branches averted her eye with embarrassment and considered silently how it seemed to be getting harder to keep her eye off the knight.


By the time the three had set off with the last couple carts for the farm, Yellow Jacket was just finishing off her interrogation of the bandit who'd slipped his bonds and escaped. The story he'd told was troubling and not a little infuriating. A short woman in a mask, a drunk asshole, and a small freak had got the drop on and captured two of her men. More over, the little weirdo had been the one to steal all of the crap Yellow Jacket and her gang had collected since coming south. To top it all off, the bitch in the mask had recognized the stone pyramids and confiscated them. The rest of the stuff could be burned and pissed on for all she cared, it was the stones that were important. Those things were her and her gangs ticket back into the big time. She had to think about her next move. Yellow Jacket didn't believe a single word about the little mutants "unnatural strength." What was more likely was that her guys were stoned at the time. The woman in the mask though, she would probably be dangerous. She knew what the stones were and that was knowledge Yellow Jacket didn't have herself.

"Yo, YJ, got a sec?" Said someone pawing at the flaps of her yurt. Yellow Jacket didn't answer, she didn't want to talk to Stacy at that moment or in the next moment. Stacy stood just outside waiting before pushing his way through the fabric portal into Yellow Jacket's den. He was the only man brave enough to just barge in like that. Unannounced, no, but whether she wanted him to or not he would come in when he was ready.

"The fuck you want stacy?" Yellow Jacket growled. Stacy was a big man, but Yellow Jacket had laid low bigger than him and the man wasn't trying to intimidate or threaten her anyway. She took a deep breath and let it out, calming herself down. "Okay, what's up Stacy."

"The rest of us are ready to move YJ, but we wanna know what's up. We going in for scouting or we going in for war?" He asked.

She thought about it for a second, then responded, "We go to parley, but prepare for war."


Fosters question to Jennifer's already turned back caught her attention and turned her back around. She'd still get the fries Cheena desperately wanted, but this man's concerns had to be addressed first. It was a part of what she saw as her duty. After a bit of thought, she said, "Well there's always manual labor that needs to be done. All these newcomers need somewhere to stay and they installed a planning office down the hall and to the left there." She told them this with a sour expression. The idea of all these people crowded into a city seemed distasteful to her. All packed together like sardines. It didn't occur to her until houses had actually been built that life in the refugee center was much like that, and that the new "village" wouldn't actually be as crowded as she believed it would be. "There are fields to clear, boards to plane, blah blah blah. If you aren't into that sort of work then you can try the farm. Walkerville or something like that, that place is like a commune for weirdos and Heroes. Er..."

She said that last bit, referring to the farm residents as "weirdos and heroes," falteringly knowing that if she wasn't here in New Paris, Jennifer would very likely be living on the farm herself. As strange as some of the people in New Paris were, none of them save Jennifer "Atomos" Barrowfield could lay claim to the outrageous character that typified the residents of Walkerville. Even some of their most benign resident could boast some amazing feat. Her friend Dean had aided in programming and salvaging various robots and computers in his spare time. In the full time, he kept a dangerous predatory mutant under control. The same went for a rather friendly guy named Nathaniel who kept a likewise unstoppable beast at Bay with no more than a rub of the belly and the sorts of behind doors activities that were he and his "lady's" business alone.

"Yeah, if you're looking to kill the hell out of bandits and undead or doing some seriously dangerous work, go see the folks over at Walkerville." She said, "They boast some of the better mechanics and craftsman too I guess, so if you need something fixed or made then yeah. Go to them. Just remember to bring chocolate, the nice rat girl only take payment in chocolate."
« Last Edit: February 04, 2019, 09:46:59 pm by saltmummy626 »
I'm really just a sexy skeleton in a suit.
Fingering techniques are very important
Quote from: Six
Using guns while sober? Sounds like you're a coward.
Yes, little hats for every noodle.
Everyone is forks it seems.
"Everything is fucked forever, and ever, and ever." -Forrest 2016

 

NOCTIFER IS A FAGGOT