Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Wandering a forest

(Open to a few more people. More information found here in the Looking for RP forum.)


The ‘Katz knew they were probably being followed in the jungle and night fell quickly. They had been on the move for three days straight by the time they stopped for a rest, and knew they couldn't afford to keep up the pace much longer. The leader of the twelve-man team known as the Wildkatz took first watch along with four others, and three teams to watch meant roughly four hours sleep. Not ideal to remain stationary at such a time, but they desperately needed the sleep. Nearly at the end of the first watch, Sergeant Surya Braddock took a deep breath and stood up to stretch and get some blood pumping. The other sentries glanced over and she nodded to them, then leaned her head from side to side, trying to stretch out a kink that had sprung up while she cleaned her nails with the tip of her knife by feeling alone, since they couldn't afford the light of a fire. The night was warm, probably mid-seventies in temperature, and the monsoons hadn’t started yet, so they were fairly lucky in that regard.

A few minutes after Braddock stood, she heard one of the men whisper harshly, “Sarge!” She spun around and her rifle snapped up, the shoulder strap taut as she searched for an enemy. Upon seeing nothing, she glanced at Bauer, who had called her, and followed his gaze upward. She stared as shapeless, glowing, pale blue lights spread out through the forest some three or four stories off the ground, gently floating through the trees. With some lower-hanging branches blocking full visibility, they couldn’t locate any specific source of the lights, which unsettled them by no small measure. Now splitting their attention between ground level for unfriendly encounters, be them human or animal, and the strange lights above, the rest of the first watch passed uneasily. Nothing happened, so they woke and informed the second watch. Little changed during the night. The lights drifted in no discernable pattern and nothing came of it, so by the time the first lights of dawn were an hour off, third watch had stopped paying such close attention to the aerial curiosity.

“Sergeant Braddock!” A hand on her shoulder with the call jarred her awake. Vilaro caught the business end of her rifle before she could point it anywhere, and Braddock blinked at the bright light of day.

“What the hell time is it?” she hissed at the other woman.

Vilaro shook her head and replied quietly, appearing agitated. “Ain’t even 0400, yet.”

The sergeant looked up in confusion. All the pale, glowing lights had merged into a broad disc hovering at half the height of the forest and shining like the sun. Treetops vanished above the radius immediately centered over the stationary Wildkatz. “Get up,” she ordered immediately. “Everyone on your feet, now! Move!”

Abruptly the whole unit sprang to respond and with most of them rubbing sleep out of their eyes as they climbed to their feet, they uniformly looked up at the strange disc of blue-hued light. Before they could react, the ground bucked under them, throwing most of the team to the ground. Braddock caught herself against a tree and stared. The light disc rippled for a few seconds like the surface of water disturbed, then slammed down around her unit. Shouts of surprise and the sounds of the forest were cut off in the blinding light, simultaneously scorching and icy all over her body. The feeling grew more intense as the ground fell away and she felt as though she was falling, but with nothing to gauge a descent by, the feeling quickly grew nauseating.

Her back slammed against a tree, cracking her head hard, and she tumbled to the ground. By the time her sight cleared, she saw a darkened forest once more. Braddock scowled and gripped her rifle with one hand, checking her head wound with the other. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. A cough jarred her head and informed her of something probably torn or twisted in her left shoulder, but cleared her throat.

“Sound off,” she ordered, then waited. Silence greeted her demand. She wiped off the blood on her hand after finding the head wound not too serious and stood cautiously, pressing her back to the tree. Not even the ambiance of the forest sounded right. “’Katz respond!” she snapped, looking around. She shook her head hard and eyed her dark surroundings uneasily. Could have been the lack of light or her head wound, but it didn’t even look like she was in the same forest anymore. An animal she’d never heard before cried out, deeper in the wood, and she gripped her rifle tighter.

The forest lightened as dawn approached. She kept her back to the tree and her head on a swivel, and soon realized that the forest was significantly cooler. As the day’s first light grew, Braddock could see her breath and she watched a puff swirl and vanish. Forty-five to fifty degrees, probably. She shook her head and looked around. It was impossible for a forest in this part of the world to drop over twenty degrees in the matter of a couple hours. Then again, it was impossible for full-grown trees to double in height and change in species, no matter the number of hours.

When finally she could see, Surya Braddock slowly began exploring the forest floor. There were no traces of her unit. It was as if she had been dropped into the strange forest alone. The underbrush was barely-mentionable, now. Tough little scrub bushes clung to the ground around and between the trees, and offered little cover for anything trying to hide. No bodies, no loose gear, no footprints, even. Somehow, she was alone in the forest.

Her head had stopped bleeding some time ago, likely aided by the cold beginning to get to her. Uneasy in such oddly unfamiliar surroundings, she tried to move as quietly as possible.

Mid-morning, she heard something in the distance, and she glanced around, stepping over to stand beside a tree to minimize exposure. Braddock peered around the tree cautiously.

High up in a tree Jade shot down a Gynrok, the beast fell over dead, however she stayed up in the canopy and waited for the predators and scavengers to show up. The Gynrok was a very large one, covered in grey matted hair which was than covered in mud and debris as natural camouflage. She also noticed something else, an unnatural sound which was easily distinguished as someone trying to hide but failing miserably at being quite. the gun resting on her shoulder had already recharged the previous shot, and she had three extra clips another five chargers full of power. She while keeping aware of everything aimed the 'psyrifle' at the tree the person was hiding. Seeing the person peaking out Jade threatened, "don't move," however Braddock would have not been able to know exactly what she said since the language would be totally alien to her.

((the psyrifle basically is a rifle looking fire-arm which fires bolts of energy, crystals are used in much of it for storage and focusing/turning it dangerous)

(Just to be clear, Surya is highly-trained, so she can move as quietly as she intends and sneak up on a target, but the cover in the forest is lacking and unfamiliar, which would allow her to be spotted.)

At the foreign growl, Braddock straightened and stiffened, pulling back behind the tree in complete unknowing contradiction to the order. She frowned thoughtfully. That did not sound like an animal, nor any language she recognized. Where the hell was she? She took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh, watched the last puff of her breath fade. The noise came from a somewhere behind and above.

She shook her head and gripped her rifle, then launched herself straight away from the tree, using it to obscure the mystery-being's line of sight of her. Moving almost silently, she relocated and pulled out a small hand-mirror, then used it to look around the forest behind her and her new tree in an effort to locate whatever made noise a minute ago.

Ukichi was sleeping in a cave not very far from the other two humanoids. However she wasn't asleep anymore as their voices had served to awaken her. Now that she was awake, she returned to her feet, stretched and yawned silently.

Then being curious as to what had awakened her, she trotted out of the cave and into the scrubs. While the plants were too short to conceal a human, they were perfectly capable of concealing a creature of her small size. The kitsune moved silently through the forest without a single misstep that could have revealed her presence, after all when you were as old a kitsune as she was, you didn't make amateur mistakes like stepping on a branch.

It didn't take long to get close enough to see the two beings that had disturbed her slumber. The one in the tree was clearly an elf with a gun. The other was....human tho she didn't recognize any of the things she carried. That was unusual, it wasn't very often that she ran across something that she didn't have even a little knowledge of. However it was safe to say that the long object she carried was also some kind of gun.....Guns, why did there have to be guns? Guns were so annoying to deal with, but at least the people who carried them had a tendency to underestimate her. Guns were not infallible after all.

After having waited a few minutes to see if anything happened, Surya cautiously continued forward, keeping close to trees as often as she could. She moved along with great care, doing well to attract as little attention as possible, now that she knew she wasn't alone in the cold forest. She got the sense of something moving somewhere around her, but every time she checked she saw only trees. Must be an animal of some sort. That she worries little about, unless it's predatory. She knew most animals were often far more scared of her than she of them. Still, she kept an eye out for the unfamiliar and possibly-dangerous.

Seeing the person, whatever it was bolt in a direction away from her she simply guessed, "stupid human-animal." Jade continued to watch vigilantly over her kills tonsee if anything was going to attempt another approach. She caught the glips of a Kitsune doing a good job at stalking through the forest, but being one of the best snipers means tbat you have a far better than avarage eye for things.

Ukichi watched as the strange human moved away from her and made the decision to follow her from a respectable distance instead of approaching the elf. After all, the human was more unusual and thus more interesting to her. Besides, if she wanted to, she could easily visit some elves at a later time, but she might never see a human like this again.

Even so that didn't mean that that she was turning a blind eye toward the elf, said elf had a gun after all. So she was careful to keep one ear toward the elf, but she wasn't focusing on picking up the elf's movement. In truth, she was listening for any sound the gun made. The elf might be able to move silently, but no gun was perfectly silent. The trigger and the mechanisms inside the gun were not silent after all, not to mention the sound of the gun firing as well. Of course, few would be able to pick up the more subtle sounds, but her ears were incredibly sensitive and she knew the sounds extremely well.

Ukichi moved a bit closer toward the human, but still kept a solid five yards between them. The kitsune didn't feel the need to reveal herself yet as she wanted to observe how the human would behave without her influence.

(Sorry for the delay. Been dealing with some heavy real life drama. )

Surya continued through the forest in a generally serpentine, forward direction, looking for signs of a trail, path, or road of any sort, and headed down with the very gentle slope of the land. Even a deer path was preferable to nothing; at least that represented a chance of leading to water. If it didn't, maybe heading down the slope could lead to a warmer valley. She kept walking for some time. A look at her watch displayed a blank screen. Digital watch must have died in the light storm, whatever it was. She glanced over her shoulder and frowned, again thinking something was there. No sounds, or significant lack thereof, informed her of such but that soldier's sixth sense tingled non-stop like an insistent buzzing in her ear.

She peered up at the trees occasionally, checking for anything that might produce a sound like the curious growl she'd heard earlier. A couple birds flew overhead and paid her no heed. Good to see something mildly normal, at least. She tried to spy any familiar foliage in an effort to deduce the location of her new surroundings, but the details just didn't fit any specific biome of which she was aware. The soldier shook her head in frustration.

After an hour in the forest without seeing another living soul, her grip on the rifle was ready but completely relaxed with her other hand draped over the barrel, the shoulder strap taut. Investigations as she walked yielded informative but ultimately useless results. Every bit of her electronics fried, probably all at the same time, and there was not a single speck of familiar plant-life around that she recognized as edible. The rations she carried wouldn't last more than two days, so she kept an eye out for any signs of life not dependent on photosynthesis. If an animal could find something to eat in these parts, chances were good she could survive off it as well. The only trick was catching sight of an animal in this kind of weather. Anything even semi-intelligent would probably rather be cozy and warm than running about in a chill.

Ukichi watch the human walk along and occasionally peer over her shoulder likely in an attempt to find her. However each time the human failed to find her and would give up. However after an hour of observation, Ukichi had grown bored of merely watching. So she decided that it was time to stop being an idle observer.

Silently she moved out of the cover that the scrub plants provided and into plain sight behind Surya. Yet she chose not to alert the human that she was there and instead decided to wait until the human noticed her by herself.

Once she was spotted, Surya would see a black nine tailed fox standing behind her with an unusually intelligent air about her. Then after a moment's silence Ukichi would say how many seconds, it took Surya to notice her. Then Ukichi would watch how the human reacted to her presence.

[By unusually intelligent air, I was referring to the fact that she would appear to be far more intelligent to any fox Surya how seen. Just didn't want it to look like I was calling Ukichi way more intelligent then normal kitsunes. xD]

Looking about as she was, it didn't take Braddock more than a quarter-minute to see the black something suddenly behind her. She whipped around in a quick, tight turn and brought her rifle to bear.

Surya stared at a black fox-like, impossible creature and blinked a couple times. Silently she ran through a couple of the most likely possibilities; probably was exposed to some sort of hallucinogenic, since she wasn't so hungry, thirsty, or exhausted to begin hallucinating by herself.

"Fourteen," she heard.

She eyed the creature as one brow raised slowly, then she glanced about. No sign of smoke or steam that might signal a less scientifically-advanced bio attack, but, of course, there were plenty of gas-based biological weapons which were undetectable to the human eye. "Fantastic," she mutters to herself. "Now I'm hallucinating talking fox-things. Bring on the straight-jacket."

Ukichi calmly waved her nine tails gently back and forth as Surya blinked at her. She would give the soldier credit as she had noticed her rather quickly. She was rather amused by the strange human's reaction which was shown by a mischievous gleam in her golden eyes. Oh she could tell that she was going to have lots of fun with this one.

After Ukichi had had spoken that single number, she was further amused by Surya's looking around as if expressing disbelief. While kitsune encounter weren't common, she hadn't expected that reaction. Of course it turned out that she was mistaken in her assumption and became less amused after being called a "fox thing."

She lowered her ears in displeasure and started to circle Surya, tho never coming closer then a meter of the human. "Fox thing? Really? First such a dishonorable description and now she thinks that I don't exist! Is that really the proper way to speak to your elder?"

The kitsune then stopped in front of Surya and a mischievous look quickly bloomed on her face. "Well if you have something against Kitsunes, I can stop looking like one if you like." Ukichi then disappeared in a puff of smoke and once that smoke disappeared, the soldier was in for yet another surprise. For in place of the kitsune, stood a lovely lady with snow white skin and a fox like face. She was dressed in a white kimono decorated with red flames. She had a slender figure and her eyes were the exact same shade of gold that she had in her true form. One last thing was that she wore a necklace with a large golden pearl.

"Perhaps you prefer talking to maidens instead of Kitsunes. Would talking to a "human" be more to your liking? I can be quite accommodating when I feel like it." She had spoken in a light and pleasant enough voice, but there was a hint of laughter to it. Ukichi then waited to see if there would be some more entertaining reactions to come from the young soldier.

(Her Tattoo is currently on her right shoulder, but I really don't think it will come into play.)

(Alrighty.)

The soldier stared for a few long, confused seconds as the talking black fox turned into an anthropomorphic woman, turning as the hallucination walked round her, so she remained facing it the entire time. When it fell silent, she blinked once, then let her rifle fall to the end of its shoulder strap, and reached for a pocket. She pulled open the velcro which kept it closed and withdrew a small notepad and pencil.

"PSYCH EVAL REQ." She wrote very deliberately in block letters, then tore the paper out and folded it in half. She tucked it carefully into another pocket and returned the notepad and pencil to its own pocket. With that done, she rested her hands on her rifle again, turned away from what she was fully convinced was still a hallucination, and started walking without a word. She really needed to find her way to civilization and get her head looked at. Must have hit it at some point... Maybe that light storm fried more than just her electronics.

(I think there was a slight mistake here. By Fox-Faced, I meant that she had a narrow face with close-set eyes, thin eyebrows, and high cheekbones. I guess I should have been more clear. Also would you mind if I had Ukichi touch Surya to try and convince her that she is real? I wouldn't doing anything to hurt Surya, just maybe have Ukichi walk and rub one tail against her in a cat-like manner.)

(Oh, sorry. My mistake. Sure, she could touch. Unless something happens, Surya would probably just ignore what she thinks isn't real.)

Ukichi watched as Surya said absolutely nothing to her, ignored her and then on top of it, started to walk away. It was pretty clear that despite all the evidence to the contrary, the human in front of her still didn't think she existed. The fox maiden rolled her eyes at the absurdity of the situation and then disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Once the smoke cleared, Ukichi was revealed to be back in her true form.

Ukichi then caught up and moved between her legs as she walked while having one of her tails rub up against her leg. She then had a bolder idea and moved in front of Surya. Ukichi then abruptly leaped at Surya and attempted to close her jaws around the soldier's rifle as if trying to steal it. In truth Ukichi wasn't actually out to steal the rifle, she merely wished to force the human to react to her and she was certain that her "attempt" to steal would force a reaction.

Since she wasn't out to steal anything, if she did succeed in grasping the rifle, she would immediately let go and back away. If she failed, then she would still back away as well. Regardless of what happened, she would then say. "Unless you want to deny my touch and ignore how you reacted to my fake attempt at stealing from you, you are going to have to admit to yourself that I exist. The sooner you realize that I'm not some figment of your imagination, the better off you'll be. After all, if you think I am strange, then I am afraid that you haven't seen anything yet."

After having collected the meat and taken it back to the village, Jade decided to track and shadow the other person for a while just for security reasons. After finding the person's tracks she slowly began to make her way through the jungle carefully following the tracks, and ensuring she wouldn't be noticed.

The instant something touched her leg, Surya froze. She looked down and watched the impossibly multi-tailed fox moved around, then leapt at her. Still not convinced the creature was real, she didn't move. Watched and frowned as she felt additional weight on her rifle, then eyed the fox as it backed off and spoke again.

She shook her head stubbornly and muttered, "It makes far more sense that I've lost my mind than you being real, fox. And now I'm talking to you. I'm talking to a hallucination in a strange empty forest, god knows where, and somehow I've lost my unit. I have had better days."

Ukichi was beginning to get seriously annoyed at this human and gave her an extremely serious look. Suddenly the tips of her nine tails and her ankles flared up with silent white blue flame. Ukichi always called up her fox-fire in an illsiuonary state in order to prevent sound from alerting her possible target.

Then Ukichi coiled to spring before flicking her two outer tails forward which sent two fire balls in Surya's direction. The fireballs would lose their illsuionary properties after being thrown and yet....the fireballs missed Surya completely. Oh they came close enough for Surya to be able to feel the heat of them, but that was all. Now assuming that that Surya took a shot at her before realizing that she had never been in any danger, Ukichi would lead up into the trees at the last possible second. Then the kitsune would use her prehensile tails to grasp the tree branches and maneuver herself behind a tree.

Only once she felt that she had enough time to speak would she say. "If you noticed, you were never in any danger of getting struck for you see, I have no interest in killing. I kill to feed myself and to defend myself if I must. However you had no way of knowing that when you turned your back toward me and walked away. If I wasn't so nice, I could have easily made an attempt on your life right then. Now the question you should be asking yourself is: Should I really keep thinking that I am hallucinating and possibly get myself killed or should I at least entertain the possibility that I am not suffering from hallucinations?"

Since she hadn't turned away a second time, Braddock watched the fox throw fireballs, which only convinced her further that she had lost touch with reality, until she felt the heat from them. She tensed but didn't shoot; instead, she stared and tried to process. The heat sure as hell felt real. Granted, if she were hallucinating, there's nothing saying she couldn't think she was hot enough to sweat even as she froze to death. Even so, buying into the fantasy could be a little better, at this point, than continuing on in silence. At least this way she'd have something to talk to. Or was it "someone?" She shook her head again at the confusion.

With her rifle still in a semi-relaxed position, she ran a hand gingerly over the back of her head. In the chill of the forest, the swelling never got too bad, where she had cracked her skull against a tree. Still didn't feel like anything had actually broken, but the damage could be internal.

With a frown in response to the fox's proposed question, she replied, "If I think I'm hallucinating because talking, fire-throwing foxes aren't real outside of fantasy stories, then how do you expect me to entertain the notion that I'm not going crazy?"

Ukichi returned to a more relaxed posture and allowed Surya to think in silence. The kitsune was secretly grateful that the human wasn't trigger happy. While she felt confident that she could have kept herself safe, dodging gunfire wasn't exactly something that she enjoyed doing.

Only after Surya had spoke did Ukichi finally break her silence..with a laugh. Ukichi enjoyed a few seconds of mirth before finally choosing to speak. "Ah, but what is real? How do you know that love is real? You can't taste it, see it, smell it, or even hear it? You may claim to feel it, but that is only one of your main senses. Even now, you have already heard, seen and felt me, yet you are still unable to decide if I am real. Even now, how do you know that we are not just some child's dream, doomed to oblivion once they awake? I'm afraid that there is more to this world then what is dreamt of in your philosophy human."

Ukichi then used her middle tail to point to Surya and gave her a hard look. "While we are on the subject, I could say that you yourself could be my own hallucination. After all, I have lived for millennium and never once have I seen a human with your sort of clothes as well as the things you carry. In fact, I can even top what you have told me. You said you heard of creatures like me in fairy tales, yet I have never heard of anything like you in all of the tales I have heard. So perhaps I am the one hallucinating." Ukichi then gave Surya a few moments to mull over what she had said before continuing. "However, I have never said that I believed myself to be hallucinating now have I? I'm too old to be questioning my sanity, besides even insane people believe themselves to be sane so what good can come from questioning myself?"