reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons

gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte
Head RP Tutor

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last seen Jul 1, 2024 12:21:35 GMT -5

oof

reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons Jun 29, 2024 14:32:12 GMT -5

Quote

Post by gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte on Jun 29, 2024 14:32:12 GMT -5

flying out in like 2 hours, i am almost back in California (by Chappell Roan) for now pls have this gif of skeletons to tide you over for actual writing

[skeletons attack Vera - sword]
D0x25t4NwNsword
[3.5]

[skeletons attack Lucia - sword]
sword
[0]

[skeleton attack Nori - sword]
sword
[3.5]

sword·sword·sword

Last Edit: Jun 29, 2024 14:33:19 GMT -5 by gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte

the m o o n controls the t i d e, it could cause you to d r o w n

d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy
Merchant

203 POSTS
Pronouns: she/her
Member is Online

am i not the loving kind?

reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons Jun 30, 2024 8:02:45 GMT -5

Quote

Post by d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy on Jun 30, 2024 8:02:45 GMT -5

The morning threatens to burn me up whole. I'm not used to this level of sweat. I'm thankful now that we didn't end up touching those animatronics -- the charred remains, all tangled up in the wires, of one of the other tributes really didn't help the mood. After that, we'd dispersed, each of us doing our own things until we wound up together in front of the big old canvas. The girls are kind to me, in a way I've never experienced before. I can't tell if it's my fault or not, that it's taken a life or death (mostly death) situation for me to let people in. I see myself reflected back in their eyes, and it's a flattering portrait, a gentle sort of admiration that I'm not sure I've earned. I'm so used to whispers and gossip, being on the receiving and giving ends of it. There's no room for that sort of carrying on here, and it disarms me. I tell them I ran into Circe Murdock and Jupiter Graves, but I don't have much else to say outside of the facts. What would be the point in exaggeration? Our collective situation can't get any worse.

The rush of winning the wealth finally wore off for me in front of the giant canvas, watching Lucia gently swipe her thumb across Nori's shoulder. My crude joke fizzled out in the air around me, landing flatly. I smiled anyways at their admonishments, insisting I was joking.

"Come on," I'd said, shaking my head, exhaling a laugh, "why don't we try and poke a hole in this thing?" Seemed whatever the Capitol make their art supplies with is tougher than anything we have out in the districts though. When my stylus wouldn't go through, I drew a cigarette. I pointed to it with my pen. "Think we could find something to smoke out here?"

But the other two were so candid, and so, so kind. Fresh peaches and good music suit them both down to the ground. I was still in miraculous shape for the situation, finely manicured and ever concerned about what the heat might do to my hair, but I'm not refreshing in the way they are.

"I miss home too," I eventually said. Lucia's offer was lovely, but I shook my head. "The place I want to be the most right now, is on our shitty sofa, kicking my nieces and nephews out of the room before the violence really gets going on T.V." So I drew a one storey house, crude but inviting, the way it is in real life.

Before we settle down to sleep, when we're whispering about our lives from before, and about what we can do for each other, I imagine the winds picking up our words, rolling them over the sand, making it ours and making it sacred.

...

The morning sun beats down on us hard. What can we do except hide out? The hours bleed out slowly, one drop at a time, while the sun loses its strength bit by bit. We discuss where we'll go, what we'll do, eventually settling on crossing the sand dunes where I ran into Circe, to try and figure out what's beyond them. Once the sun is low enough in the sky we emerge from beneath our spoils, and get moving.

A lot of faces were flipped through overhead last night. Wherever the missing tributes were sent for their Bloodbath, it'd seen a lot more spillage than ours. Portia Maybach's face surprises me, and so does Junie St. James'. More than anything though, the amount of them is what unsettles me.

On our way out, I notice that the venue's signs have all been updated. The Maybach Bowl. Huh. I bet she'd like that.

The plains are starkly empty. I think they're creepy, but not as creepy as the animatronics... at first. That's before the skeleton mutts claw their way up to us, bony hands inexplicably wrapped around the hilts of swords. Where do they get these skeletons anyway? Bodies of tributes? Bodies from the streets? From the detention centre? Probably all three.

"Guys. Don't be scared -- like, Nori, Lucia, look at them!" I point the blunt end of my flail at the closest one. "These are skeletons! This is bones!"

One of them clips me, but I'm not going to let him make me eat my words. Time to strike back. I spit at it first for good measure.

vera attacks skeleton with ornate flail!

O9YOhcAi3jflail

Block -- 0.0 damage

vera uses accuracy station to reroll!

flail

Broken Left Arm -- 6.5 damage

[kaitlin]

flail·flail

Last Edit: Jun 30, 2024 8:09:18 GMT -5 by d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy

by dars

click for characters! / upat tracker!

lucia valentine [d8] 🐞 tris
RP Tutor

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Pronouns: he/him
last seen Jul 2, 2024 5:09:35 GMT -5

reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons Jun 30, 2024 11:51:48 GMT -5

Quote

Post by lucia valentine [d8] 🐞 tris on Jun 30, 2024 11:51:48 GMT -5

During their solo excursions, Lucia does not come across other tributes. She sticks to the sidelines, ever the cautious one. Using some leftover bandages and dipping them in one of her canteens of water, the girl goes about trying to wash herself clean. The fabric becomes more red with each swipe across her skin, washing away the remnants of a boy she never got the chance to know. She still feels filthy, but when she balls up the soggy waste and tosses it into the sand, it almost feels as if she's freeing herself from something.

She unties her pigtails and goes about using both the bands to secure her hair into a messy top knot, trying to relieve some of the clammy heat. Around her neck, she folds the tie dye bandana in place, ready to catch any stray beads of sweat. She wears the magenta heart shaped glasses, which conveniently match her own outfit: sheer strips of purple-pink fabric that at least cover more skin than some of the other uniforms she saw during the bloodbath. If this is what she has to wear to the end of the world, then so be it. This at least feels more comfortable than the gala gown had.

Camp becomes a safe place for her, and she's smiling when she returns. She feels at ease being social with her allies, but something about the idea of reaching out to the others only causes her stomach to flip like a pancake. She knows she'll be kind to any stranger, she knows she'll probably find something to like about them, but asking herself to potentially mourn more than the two people whose deaths will already devastate her is a tall order. It's not easy to love in the arena, to unmask a bleeding heart and allow it to flow. She tries to guard her soft underbelly before anyone can think to exploit it.

When the faces appear in the night sky, glowing radioactive yellow from the neon light show, Lucia has to place her hands against the sand and hold herself in place. It crumbles beneath her fingers. There are so many more tributes than the boy who was blown to bits and the other who was charred to a crisp, all those missing individuals from the Bloodbath make their whereabouts known. Dead. It's the very first day, the prologue to the horror story, and already half of the tributes have been culled. She can't bring herself to ask the others what they think happened; she doesn't want to know.

Sleep is restless, but when dawn arrives, the lingering hurt that ran across her throat has faded. She feels physically as if she's woken up after a hard Exy match, dizzy from the aftermath of an adrenaline influx, but calm. Steady. She has a bite of jerky, takes a quick gulp of her water. When her allies wake, she's already got her essentials packed and her bag ready, her hoard of weapons tied into a bundle that she can tote around to their next base camp. "Good morning, ladies," she says softly, not wanting to rush them, but still feeling that sense of unease that urges her to keep moving forward. It won't be long until scavengers return to the Cornucopia, searching for scraps.

Within an hour of their preparations, the girls set off on their journey. They make small talk as they travel, continuing to get to know one another. "What was your favorite hangout spot back home?" she asks Vera, curious to know if their paths could have ever crossed before this cruel fate was realized. How many times did they miss one another in the crowd? How many of their memories share the same setting? She feels bad leaving Nori out of the mix, so she makes sure to focus some attention on the other girl, too. "Nori, what's a normal day like in Eleven? If you're comfortable sharing."

The day moves like this for a time. They find a good place to set up camp, they share stories and little truths, the sun starts to sink below the horizon. It's easy to pretend like this is going to be another relatively easy day for them. No tributes laying in ambush, no traps beneath their feet, just three girls and a budding friendship tucked away in their makeshift safe haven. It's as they're planning the first watch that the night starts to take a turn for the worse. An eerie sound comes rattling on the wind, and Lucia's hand closes around the hilt of her glaive as she rises to her feet and scans the area.

When the skeletons start to crawl their way out of the sand, wearing tattered janitor uniforms, Lucia is more aghast than Vera. "Don't be scared," her district partner says as if it should be easy, gesturing to the undead army closing in on them. "These are skeletons! This is bones!" She tries to accept the courage her friend is offering, but when the monsters make their first sweep, Lucia is quick to fling herself backwards to avoid damage. Nori and Vera each take a shallow scratch, and she feels bad not doing more to help them. She inhales a shaky breath, steeling herself and readying her weapon to swing.

"Okay, okay," she whispers at first to herself, and then louder to her allies, "let's go for their knees. Knock 'em over, and then play hopscotch on their skulls." It sounds easier than she knows it'll be, but at least she is not a lone soldier fighting this army. The three of them are equal to the horde of skeletons. She pulls back, focusing her gaze on the nearest monster stumbling closer. A breath in, another out.

She attacks with the intention of breaking.

[kaitlin]

lucia attacks the skeletons ; glaive
5DcBM1sG1Kglaive
~~miss~~

accuracy | day two

glaive
stabbed in neck, 40 10 + 1 blades

glaive·glaive

Last Edit: Jun 30, 2024 11:55:00 GMT -5 by lucia valentine [d8] 🐞 tris

all my girls got their lace and their crimes.

nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella]
Tribute

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Pronouns: She/Her
last seen Jul 1, 2024 12:53:00 GMT -5

reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons Jun 30, 2024 23:39:09 GMT -5

Quote

Post by nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella] on Jun 30, 2024 23:39:09 GMT -5

When the sun sets over the edge of the sand dunes, and the night falls so dark we can barely see each others’ smiles, pearly teeth glinting in the firelight, that’s when I start to feel the lump in my throat coming back. But I swallow hard, squeeze a fist, force it down, determined not to let the tears come. It would be so easy, knowing they won’t be seen, but I don’t want to cry. Something about settling down before bed makes the unease of being here so much more vivid; I’m reaching for comfort that isn’t there, like shivering under covers that will never be warm enough.

With Lucia and Vera, I manage to hold on to a few small things. The gentle touch of Lucia’s hand on my shoulder, her generous smile in my direction. Vera’s hearty, haughty laugh, her whip-smart snarky quips that I think are her armor the same way my jokes are mine. I see them acting tough, laughing off impending death, and even though I know it’s for themselves too, I think it’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

But at night, after our whispered secrets have knotted us even closer together, I lay and watch the light of the dying embers glow and flicker against their sand-prickled skin, their wind-tousled hair. They look so soft, beings of flesh and bone as we are. Sleeping, they seem so vulnerable, their restless dreaming eyes darting back and forth behind their eyelids. So very delicate. It’s hard for me to sleep, and hard to stay awake, with a voice in my head telling me that if I close my eyes, I might not see them again.

- -

”I like the bedhead look on you,” I shoot Vera an encouraging smile while we’re getting everything packed up. ”No, really. I think you pull it off.”

By the second day, the three of us have fallen into rank like a pack of wolves. Vera is as magnetic as the day I met her, her confidence like an aura, contagious. Really, the nerve of checking your nails, fussing with your hair when you’re at the bottom of your needs pyramid. I get it, though. She’s showing up, not giving up, and I respect that.

The whole place feels like someone left the oven door open. As we trudge on through the shifting sands, Lucia centers us with talk of home. I think she asks me more questions than anyone ever cared to know about me, and I’m grateful for the distraction from the oppressive heat as we walk.

”Eleven ain’t too bad,” I confide with a shrug, shifting the weight of the pack on my shoulder. ”I mean, you work the fields and the orchards until they can’t work you anymore. But life is just…slower there, I guess.”

Trying to talk about home is like trying to crack a window in a thunderstorm. A whole lot more wind and rain tries to get through than what you wanted. One little thought about home is put into words, and a wave of other memories wants to come too. But right now I need to focus. So I fall quiet, fall into line, and start trying to think ahead a few paces, mentally running through how I might hold the sword, what formation the three of us should take if we encounter danger, which of my supplies could be useful.

The time for really getting serious comes a few hours later when a gaggle of skele-dudes come clawing up out of the sand, one of them swinging its sword at me. The edge of the metal slides against my forearm, slicing a narrow arc of red, my first blood spilled. A hiss escapes my teeth, my heartbeat accelerating, blood rushing to my head, steam coming out my ears. Oh, that’s gonna make me mad.

”Don’t be scared —like Nori, Lucia, look at them!” Vera urges us on. These are skeletons! This is bones!” She spits and strikes, getting right at it. I’ve jumped a step back, blurting out a laugh in response, ”Ha!”

”Okay, okay,” I hear Lucia steady herself, ”let’s go for their knees. Knock ‘em over, then play hopscotch on their skulls.”

”Right!” I shout back. ”They’re already dead! How hard can it be?”

Both my allies are severing bones from the beasts, showing me how it’s done. I nod a few times, up and down, up and down, building up steam until my whole body’s rearing to return that blow. The sides of my mouth curl back into a grin, one that I intend to hold onto. Knees? I’d go straight for their knobby little necks. Or I’d pile them up into one funeral pyre and burn them.

Oh, hey.

The girls land hits that are strong enough to buy me just enough time; in three breaths I’ve got the tar from my pack into my shaking hands, spreading the sticky black goop along the length of my blade. The match quivers, strikes. The flame catches. Woosh.

”Holy shit!” My voice crackles at the top of its range. “I can’t believe that worked! Ohhh, oh, oh!” The air shimmers against the heat of the flame; I extend my arms outward, holding it far away from my body, a little unsure, but I steel my voice. ”You are in BIG trouble now, skeleton horde!!”

[kaitlin]

nori lights gladiator sword with tar + match, attacks skeleton!
rS1_at0un6sword
{0.0}

1-50
{moderate burn, +4 dmg}

(accuracy)
sword
{9.0, +2 rainbow lanyard = 11.0}

sword·1-50·sword

Last Edit: Jun 30, 2024 23:47:13 GMT -5 by nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella]

hot girl summer

[dars]

gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte
Head RP Tutor

4,612 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Jul 1, 2024 12:21:35 GMT -5

oof

reaper, butcher, girl ;; hot girl summer vs skeletons Jul 1, 2024 12:19:54 GMT -5

Quote

Post by gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte on Jul 1, 2024 12:19:54 GMT -5

t h e skeleton c r e w

It's hard working the graveyard shift.

The daily grind, the nine to five shamble. Femurs were wildly ineffective without the connective tissue. Time has not been kind to these bodies, bones bleached by unrelenting sunlight. Pristine are the exposed rows of teach beaming as they descend upon the tributes. They sink teeth into skin the same of their blades, their gnashing jaws make for a rhythmic hum.

The hoard of skeletons are not a particularly fearsome enemy, but their numbers are overwhelming. Whatever the girls manage to defeat crunch beneath the feet of the advancing army. The scent of burn and decay curl over the sand as a few turn away from the fire in Nori Halliday's hand.

But fear does not stop the hoard, it's ranks advance again.

They are mindless in their desperation. They will spill blood.

[skeletons attack vera - sword]
rJN6DGmASksword
[8.0]

[skeletons attack lucia - sword]
sword
[3.5]

[skeletons attack nori - sword]
sword
[9.0]