"Into the Abyss" (The Expedition Party)

[Eitan Angevin]

Eitan gritted his teeth and stayed a shot when Myles and Jonah went barreling into their firing lines. He realized it was their job, though, and so he adjusted his aim to compensate. They kept the leader far enough away that between the bulletholes riddling the thing and Myles' strength of arm, it was disabled for the nonce. That just meant they had a few more en route because of course they did.

When his pistol was out of ammunition, he holstered it and brought his rifle to bear upon the three new Fungeliones. His focus narrowed as it often did during a battle and his aim didn't suffer for the pressure; in fact, it was easier to focus. But when Brenner called for a mêlée, he considered his options. He had his cutlass, of course, but was used to fencing with it. Where monstrous things were concerned, he thought he ought to opt for his rifle with its attached bayonet. The thing would give him optimal reach and he didn't want the beasties getting too close to him.

Taking several steps forward to draw attention to himself and perhaps allow the back line to get off a few more shots, he dropped into a half-crouch, with the rifle and bayonet held close to his body. He next propelled his rifle forward, then dropped his supporting hand while taking a step forward with the right foot, simultaneously thrusting out his right arm to full length with the extended rifle held in the grip of his right hand alone. He wielded it more like a sword than a spear, perhaps, but the reach of his thrust caught the beast where its heart ought to be if it were a natural sort of thing. It flailed at him, its reach too short with his entire rifle and arm extended so.

With all the strength of his arms and wrists, he grasped the butt of the rifle as his boots sought as much traction as possible against its greater mass. Shots rang out behind him, whizzing overhead as he kept low, using the ground to support him. Just when he thought his strength would give out, the collective damage of his bayonet and the bullets brought it down. Wasting no time, he yanked his bayonet free, braced his foot against its neck and brought the point of his bayonet down into its eye, eliciting a gout of aqueous humor into the air. Hoping the brain damage would be enough to keep it down for a while, he retracted the blade once more and turned to look for the next target. They needed the things downed so they could safely see about killing them beyond their regenerative abilities to save them.

[Stefan Dornkirk]

The shattering report of rifle fire reached out in cascading waves to fill the cavern space with sound that seemed, at its height, as though it were coming from every direction at once. Moments like this went a long way in Stefan's efforts to forgive his parents for forcing him through the military academy and then a tour of service. The first three creatures he had identified charging at his side of the circle were dispatched in a veritable hailstorm of bullets shot by himself and the soldiers that fell in line around him.

There was shouting of various kinds from the circle behind him, which he tried to drown out so he could concentrate on the task at hand. More came, leaping out of banks of vegetation and fungus from the sides, causing Stefan and those around him to swivel their rifles (reloaded expertly from those in the inner circle) to one side of the other. Brenner's call for hand-to-claw fighting sent ripples of icy water down Stefan's spine. He was not particularly good in a melee, and if the creatures had broken through the front line any one of them could be in deadly danger. Making himself breathe through his nose he tried to assess to keep his nerves in order. The creatures appeared to be everywhere for a moment before he took firm hold of himself and concentrated on the situations as though it were a puzzle to solve. He took a knee and began aiming shots wherever they might be needed and wouldn't risk damaging his comrades. Turning from left to right the air seemed to go out of his lungs as one of the massive forms was caught, seemingly impossibly, on the bayonet of Eitan's rifle. Suspended there, struggling it let out a roar that echoed even louder than the gunfire going on around them. Stefan's instincts to protect slid into place like a guillotine falling and he swiveled his rifle around, firing into the creature until it went limp and slide to the ground. Turning to check on their fearless Commander he found Brenner in the thick of it, sword blade bare and bloodied, though not the color of blood Stefan was used to. Lightborn was by his side, which was reassuring in the circumstance.

At that moment, motion from the corner of his eye pulled his attention and he saw a Fungelione bearing down on his brother from the side. It was a smaller beast, faster and lighter on its feet, streaking from one group of foliage to the next, head low and eyes intent on Brenner. Instincts that were as old as thought, that had activated to pull his brother back to safety or push him out of danger from the time the Commander had started toddling around their nursery slammed through Stefan's muscles and he threw himself forward just inside to slide between the charging abomination and its targets exposed back.

Time slowed to a crawl; the leaping form of the, smaller but still large feline sailing through the air, Stefan's arms moving through the molasses that the air felt like to bring his pistol into play, his hand extending into the literal maw of the beast before he could angle to muzzle upwards and unload all six shots in rapid succession into the thing's brain via its soft palet. The jaws came shut, mercifully lax, around his wrist aa time sped back up and the weight of the creature slammed into Stefan. Both of them fell in a tangled tumble to the ground amid a spray of spores.

The ground, when it found him, was decidedly hard and seemed to be made of stone. His head smacked down into it with a sound like something semi-hard bouncing off something decidedly harder. His vision narrowed quickly into blackness.

The next thing he knew Lightborn was heaving him bodily out from under the creature and giving him what Stefan considered to be an entirely unnecessary shaking, presumably, to check that he was conscious.

"I'm good!" He shouted, more angry than hurting before proceeding to have a massive coughing fit from having breathed in so much of the cloud emitting from the dead-ish Fangelion. The pounding on the back that he got from the giant of a man did not help, and he tried, unsuccessfully, to shoot away from it while still wheezing for air.

Looking around him he saw the fight appeared to be coming to a close so, once Lightborn had decided he wasn't about to immediately expire, Stefan reloaded his pistol and unloaded the entire thing into the brains of the horror that had tried to take his brother from him before wandering off in search of a blade long enough to decapitate the thing.

[Myles Arnnett]

The creatures were fast, faster than any man he'd had the misfortune of facing, and in a moment two of the three beasts he was facing leaped past him to his sides moving the harry the soldiers he'd sworn to protect. He was in the front and surrounded by threats, the question for Myles quickly became a matter of prioritizing the threats around him and eradicating them as quickly as he could. Letting a snarl tear from his lips Myles lunged at the fungelion nearest him, the one defending the downed beast that had initiated this mess. As he dove forward the threatening foe instinctual dodged away from him but in doing so left the staggering ambusher undefended. Flicking the sword in his hand around he extended his strike into a downward thrust and drove the point of his blade into the neck of the first fungelion sinking his blade halfway into the beast as it loosed a choked and bloody rattle.

No good dead goes unpunished however, Myles heard Jonah start to yell his name only to be drowned out by the sound of the roaring Fungelion that tackled him. If not for his armor the beasts claws would had rent his back wide open that they tumbled across the ground.

Now on his back with the beast on top of him Myles threw his arm up just in time to meet the maw of the beast that clamped down on his sword arm with and iron like vice. The beast locked its jaws and whipped its head back and forth try to wrench his armored hand from his body. Even through his gauntlet he could feel the pressure of the beasts jaws warping his armor. All was not lost however, With his free shield arm Myles began to pummel the creature his gauntleted arm drawing rivulets of blood from the beast with each desperate strike. Jonah for his part was perforating the hide of the single minded beast with his spear to little effect on the Fungelion hellbent of removing Myles's throat.

The sound of cracking iron peeled from Myle's gauntlet as he winced and began to truly wonder if this creature might truly rip his limb off. Desperation mixed with adrenaline further fueling his wailing on the beasts giant head. Then their was a roar, not the fungelion, but Jonah who'd retreated some yards away Myles noted in that brief moment. Jonah who was now running back into the fray spear gripped like a lance as drove it straight into the core of the beast that finally loosed its grip on Myles as it collapsed atop him.

The quiet seemed to follow as quickly as it had been disrupted, the threats like the many that had come before dissipating back into the warrens as if they'd again completed some test. Assuming the threat was gone Myles looked back to the rest of the group sheepishly from beneath the fungelion corpse sprawled atop him.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner's focus was on the ghostblooms at his feet- a sure sign that they were on the right track- when he was suddenly vaulted off his feet by a flash of motion that didn't register in his periphery until it was upon him. He tightened his grip on the blade in his hand as he lost his footing and stumbled to the side. When he regained a semblance of stability, he whipped round to find that it had been Stefan who had intercepted an attempt to blindside him, and was engaged with the snarling culprit.

He lifted his sword in an attempt to aid Stefan, but he couldn't level a swing without the risk of slicing into friendly flesh rather than fungal, so he stayed his sword arm and let Stefan handily tend to his own affairs. At a cry from Lightborn, he turned to engage with another, larger member of the pack and after a matter of seconds that felt like hours, the battle seemed to have drawn to a close.

Brenner and several of the others were still poised for combat, scanning all vantages for concealed threats that might bear down on them to finish what the vanguard had started. But after a minute, Piers signaled an 'all clear' and, panting, Brenner wiped his blade clean of the noxious-smelling fluid that seemed to pass for blood amongst the odd hybrid of feline and fungus that had flanked them moments earlier.

Sheathing his sword and crouching to collect the discarded rifle, he turned to address the troops.

"Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for keeping your wits about you and being efficient dispatching these... things. The good news is, we still seem to be on the right track..." He gestured to the ground, "The ghost blossoms seem to be leading us further East. I suspect it will be a few days in these environs, so we'll need to be extra cautious in a part of the depths that offers so much cover to predators. Unless anyone is in need of medical attention, we should trek another couple of hours today before Piers finds us a camp site that we can fortify. Soon enough, Kameraden, we'll be on the final stretch of our sojourn, so make sure you rest up when you're able. We have enough threats to be mindful of without people hallucinating new ones due to lack of sleep." He strapped his rifle to his back, and gathered his pack.

"All right, then, let us deeper into the abyss."

END

[Rune]

R E V I E W

Lore:

Brenner:
Tactics:
Leading an away mission
Managing troop morale
Exploring uncharted areas
Time-management in the Warrens
Engaging in battle against feral, fungal fauna
Ranged combat against quadrupeds
Melee combat against quadrupeds
Holding the line

Eitan:
Blades:
Bayonet Charge

Gunslinging:
Avoiding Shooting Friendlies
Switching Guns Mid-Battle

Tactics:
Giving Orders Mid-Battle
Being Attacked from Multiple Sides
Forming Up
Back-to-Back Formation
Drawing Enemy Attention

Stefan:
Firearms:
Aiming for the Eyes
Firing into Melee
Kneeling for Stability

Body Building:
Holding Up Several Times Own Body Weight

Leadership:
Giving Orders Mid-Battle
Explaining the Plan

Biology:
Fungalion Anatomy
Studying a New Biome

Myles:
One handed Swords:
Bracing for a Charge
Stabbing what's Vulnerable

Detection:
The Warrens Sends Threats from Above
Watching for Backup

Resistance:
Campaign Fatigue
Adapting to New Biomes

One Handed Shields:
Bracing for Impact
Frontline Stance

Florian:
TBA

Points:
10 each, not for magic

Injuries/Ailments:
Various injuries, healed by now.

Loot:
Not dying

Notes: