Placeholder Hunting Pt 1

Tinnok hunts alone.

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This is Falyndar at its finest. Danger lurks everywhere - in the ground, in the trees, in the bush. Only the strongest survive...

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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Tinnok on August 31st, 2014, 11:19 pm

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Hunting PT. 1
42nd of Summer, 514 A.V.


There was something in Zinrah, something she would later learn was the plant induced dazing drug that had the city in a stupor, but to the new interloper, she couldn't tell the lazy Dhani behavior from normal. Whatever it was, however, the strange sinking feeling in her skin that caused her to sleep longer, and even pull at Tsuya's boundless energy? She didn't like it. She thought perhaps that it had something to do with spending a lot of time underground, and if that was the case, she was going to have to get used to it, after all, Caiyha had blessed her with a subterranean biome with her new and potent Phylonura, but...perhaps a day or so in the wilds wouldn't hurt.

She felt better after only a few bells wandering out from the ruins atop Zinrah. She had seen the doubtful looks on the guard's faces that monitored the entrance to make sure no Myrian scouts ever discovered it, but regardless of whether the Tinnok of a year ago would have rushed to the barricade to release the secret, the one that stepped from the tunnels that day would have done no such thing. She was many things, but she wouldn't betray her new home, regardless of her conflicted feelings on the matter. The fact that Siku had guided her to the city herself still made her skin crawl...but this was all part of Caiyha's plan she knew. This place was safe to raise Tsuya, safe from the Myrians that would drag her, torturing her all the way back to Taloba to face some primal and dire punishment, probably the only time she'd ever get to see Myri in her flesh...

Tinnok's longbow was in hand, and her fingers tightened around the leather grip, not realizing she was holding it so tightly her hand was turning a bright shade of red with the pressure. She let it go with a small release of breath and glanced up into the canopy above.

She was going to provide for the nest, or at the very least, Tsuya and her, she would be no layabout, nor make the Dhani think any less of Myrians and how they brought up their seed, even if she was the troublesome story of one, and so it was time to hunt.

It took another bell to mostly clear the ruins, at least to the point where pieces of granite and other crumbling structures were minimal compared to foliage. She headed almost directly opposite the blockade, not interested in chancing any encounters. She'd have to make a long journey around to head to the basin eventually, but not today. Once the ruins became less prevalent her eyes began to search. The ground was at the forefront of her search, but she let her golden gaze flicker to the bushes, shrubs, and tree bark. Animals left signs of passing everywhere, and there were more than a few types of birds she could find. She made a mental note of finding someone in Zinrah who knew of trapping. With the Myrian patrols she'd have better luck setting traps and checking them every few days than coming out each time starting a new hunt.

She found old tracks first, large hoof prints that seemed a bit too large for a tapir, or the small deer that ran rampant in the jungle so she decided on Okapi. They led off back towards the ruins, though she wasn't sure if the creature would actually head through them or skirt them, perhaps another thing to investigate, perhaps the ruins were old enough that they didn't bother the local wildlife as much and hunting within them was a possibility after all.

Proceeding further she found claw marks on the lower end of a tree, but these were not fresh either. The wood that had been exposed by the claws was not the fresh whitish yellow, but dull and dirty, probably several rainy days worth of work. It probably meant some large cat marked this as territory, but took it days or weeks even to complete the cycle of markings again...or maybe it had just been scratching its claws for the hai of it.

Tinnok did not lose patience as she continued, gaze searching here and there. It had been a while, but like many things, hunting required patience. She kept her breathing even, kept her bare feet moving along roots and soft earth to make as little noise as possible, and headed in what she hoped was a nearly straight line opposite Zinrah.

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Tinnok
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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Tinnok on November 30th, 2014, 11:40 pm

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Occasionally there was a glimmer of light that broke through enough of the canopy to reveal to Tinnok just how much time had passed since she had set out from Zinrah. She didn't like the thought of leaving even a sleepy Tsuya alone so long within the tunnels with some of those curious...staring Dhani. She had had shyke luck, all tracks old or older, hardened or nearly washed away by rain. Twice she had glimpsed Agouti, but they had scampered off quickly, seeming to sense her intent.

That was when she heard them, the whistles. They were bird calls, but they sent a shiver straight down her spine, knowing them to be not true birds, but a Myrian fang...or perhaps more communicating through the whistles. That would be the reason no prey had been around for the last bell at least. Much like a startled deer, Tinnok froze, trying to immediately identify where the noises were from and how far away. This would determine how she chose to flee, for flee she was certainly going to.

She flattened herself against the nearest tree trunk, ears straining, then heard another lilting call, either suggesting to fan out or group up, but both with the same intent, to head back to target, which meant the blockade, as no Myrian clans lived on the other side of Zinrah.

Depending on how close they were, she'd never get a chance to climb a tree without someone catching sight of her, so without wasting another tick, Tinnok shoved herself away from the tree and began sprinting back the way she came. Her bow was flung over her chest and around a shoulder, and then her eyes focused on two places, the ground, and ahead of her to check for foliage. She needed to be fast and quiet. It meant navigating the foliage around her carefully, but also translating that ahead of her. A nice jump that allowed her to clear some noisy bushes did little for her if she was just going to dive into a copse of giant ferns.

Her best bet was to keep to the giant roots that made a series of pathways above the ground, this kept her from sinking into wet squishy earth and leaves, but presented its own problems, as not all bark was solid and it might crack or break away beneath her feet. Her mind was so focused on the task ahead, ball of her feet skittering across one long root to bound and leap over a small thicket of vines onto the next root system, running up the next trunk a bit before pushing off to land on a small patch of leafless dirt that allowed her to get to her next root. When the leaves were shiny and slick she would run through them, careful to slow her pace so she didn't slip and fall.

Whistles came around her, but she barely registered them, certainly not focusing enough to catch their meaning besides the fact that no one, it seemed, had spotted her.

Though her pace from Zinrah had been slow and arduous, checking for tracks, her return trip was swifter, albeit slightly slowed at points to keep her noise level to a minimum. It was far from flawless, feet covered in mud squelched, pieces of bark chipped and cracked beneath her weight, and though she would imagine she had calculated her leaps precisely, the swish and flick of her body sweeping by foliage would carry behind her, making her wince every time. That being said, Tinnok felt a small bit of pride well inside her at her progress. Living entirely int he wilderness had given her an edge that inhabiting even her cabin outside of Taloba hadn't afforded her. One had to read their surroundings in their entirety. Every step mattered, and each root she touched sent a thrum through her Gnosis, feeling the slow steady rhythm of the trees, but each step revealing a different story and feeling, sometimes based on the age of the tree, other times the variety. In this way her immediate concern of being caught faded into a mesmerizing and patterned run, so focused on her legs and breathing, that she almost didn't notice when the foliage thinned ever so slightly and more grey and slate colored surfaces began to peek through the green and beneath moss.

She allowed herself a moments pause, suddenly realizing her heavy breathing was probably the loudest thing about her now. She heard another whistle, but it was most definitely fainter than previously. Finding a nearby tree Tinnok summoned her djed and formed her claws on hands and feet, using them to scale the tree and find a solid branch, thick enough to slide against the trunk and hide most all of her body if someone glanced up from below. If they were skirting around the ruins, she had only to wait until they passed. If they were going through them the same could be said, and Tinnok would not be the one that risked giving up the secret entrance of the city in the centuries the Dhani had managed to keep it hidden.

It was then she realized she'd be coming back from her hunt empty handed and a small dissatisfied huff exited her.

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Tinnok
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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Tinnok on December 1st, 2014, 12:02 am

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Luck struck twice then, first in the way that the Myrian fang did not pass close to her, or at least close enough to hear any physical sign of their presence. She heard two more whistling calls before there was nothing, and even then she waited patiently. Her hand rubbed the bark of the tree she perched in absentmindedly, seeing the strange dark memories of a few of its roots slowly burrowing through solid stone, forcing it to crack and shift under the sheer tenacity of decades the tree had at its disposal. It was sometimes easy to forget the sheer strength of trees. No Tskanna could shift one of these great things, and the only thing to bring one down was the same thing that had erected it in the first place: time.

Fingertips running over the tough bark that would weather centuries of storms, rains, and animal movement, the half breed was struck with a peculiar idea. In all of her practice morphing, she had never tried to imitate a plant. The thought had never occurred to her, and in her brief lessons with Svan, had never been discussed, but plants were living things just like animals...why shouldn't she be able to mimic their nature as well?

Bark was rough and thick, easy to peel to an extent, yet surprisingly and alarmingly sturdy. To form her skin into something like bark...that was something altogether different from fur and scales. She bit her lip, thinking and focused on the appendage, drawing up her djed that had so recently stowed her claws away and sent it into her left arm, holding it upon her lap. She pushed the magical energy into her forearm, pushing and pulling it into a fairly large area in the middle of her arm that would be the experimental spot for the bark. She decided that she most certainly did not want to simply try to copy the surface exactly, but start step by step. When a tree was a sapling its bark was rough, but smooth, minus the decades of wear that would thicken and harden into the effective plant armor the tree she was in wore today. Even as she focused on these things, her mind was overcome by the experiences of the tree. It did not see its years pass through eyes, but rather felt them, the constant heat and wet sinking into its skin, sunlight and warmth, collecting this energy to increase its strength, the strange numbness when a branch or entire limb would be lost to a storm or creature.

Tinnok's mind drifted, holding her magic in her arm, yet also feeling the hypnotic pull of the tree, the connection of her thoughts with it, slowly melding together. Her eyes closed and she drifted farther and farther back to the innermost ring of the tree, when it was but a sapling so many years ago, when the landscape of this place was so different. She felt the warmth and energy coursing through her roots as it did, how the weather effected her weak and flexible body so much more.

Her eyes snapped open with a sudden focus and she stared into her arm, imagining a greyish thick texture to her arm. Her skin could still be flexible as it was with a sapling, yet it wouldn't be the same pliable substance of flesh. She watched her skin color change and felt the skin around the section of forearm pull, tightening somewhat as the section pulled and thickened. Tentatively she ran her right fingers over her arm to feel the hardness, then pushing with her mind, though imagining the movement translated in the motion of her fingers, she dragged them along her skin, expanding the harder, plantier flesh with her fingers, drawing the grey to the base of her wrist, then more slowly, all the way up to her elbow. She thumped her right fist upon the surface a couple of times and smiled.

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Tinnok
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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Tinnok on January 5th, 2015, 2:27 am

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Tough skin, thick and coarse stood on her arm. It was too fresh and new to peel like old bark, and though this form was new, Tinnok found there was something that resonated with her, that made it easier to hold than some of the other forms she had tried. She tried to discern if this was because of the experience of the tree she had shared before attempting this, her increasing skills at morphing, or something else entirely.

She wanted to try thickening and aging the wood of her arm, to make it more into the impervious armor of the great tree she inhabited, yet something about her connection, her mind still embedded in the youth of a sapling changed her mind. Instead she closed her eyes and directed her djed down through her wrist into her fingers, and up past her elbow up to her shoulder. She opened her eyes and tested the surface again with her own fingers, drawing them across the bark that was her skin, knocking on it to hear a satisfying thunk that would not come from normal flesh. She found she could rotate her arm at the shoulder, but that her other joints were frozen. There was a moment of panic, feeling her limbs utterly frozen, unable to shift her joint at the elbow or fingers, trapped in wood, then the half breed inhaled, the aura of the tree pressed tightly against her back, guiding her along this path of discovery.

First she channeled djed in and around her elbow. In order to rotate her limb she needed to separate the wood, accessing her joints freely, she glanced around her, looking for another plant like form that would aid with the desired effect. Leaves were too thin and flimsy, moss brittle, then the answer came when the canopy shifted above her and a vine tendril fell down, hitting her lightly in the face. She craned her neck to see a troop of wanolo baboons passing easily over head, chattering good naturedly with each other.

Patience was the greatest tactic a hunter could utilize. Tinnok looked regretfully down at her arm and released her djed, making mental notes for future use, as she already had a new improved model in mind. When her flesh was back to its scaled and moveable state she slowly seperated herself from the trunk of the tree and picked up her longbow. There was hunting to be done.

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Tinnok
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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Tinnok on January 6th, 2015, 1:48 am

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The troop was in good spirits, that she could tell immediately. They didn't move with any great hurry through the canopy, pausing two trees past her own to stop for figs up in the top of the strangler. Their cobalt fur shifted in a passing breeze, at least of a dozen of them or more.

The Half breed took her time sizing them up. She spotted one female, then another with tiny different colored young clinging tightly to their backs, these two were immediately discounted from her hunt. As far as she could tell there weren't any truly old or feeble, the jungle did not often make distinguishing prey so easy, as the weak would have already fallen behind or been consumed by another clever predator. She sat forward slowly, then even more slowly shifted into a crouching position, one knee upon an outward reaching branch, the other upright, the ball of her bare left foot wrapping around the side of the tree as a grip to steady her body as her back straightened and she slipped an arrow out of her quiver and notched it to her longbow in one smooth motion. The well oiled bowstring made not a creak as she drew it back to its fullest, left arm straining, right hand clutched around the bow and settling it into position.

The two females aside Tinnok spotted two large males jockeying over some fruit. They were not the oldest, not by far, nor either of them the leaders of the troop, but would make a good prize nevertheless. Hitting two would be optimistic, but Tinnok readied her bow upon one of them, waiting until the two were caught wrestling over the piece of fruit, one with his back to her. Glancing at the distance she angled her bow up ever so slightly, her current elevation a bit below where the troop had paused to forage.

The shot was powerfully drawn and sailed cleanly through the foliage, but missed both of the bickering males by quite a long shot, veering off towards the right and sailing through the middle of the troop. Though it barely hit the foliage, the whistle of it sent the troop into a frenzy. Tinnok immediately notched another arrow, trying not to let her frustration get to her at missing such a good target, but they were still a distance away, she did not factor in the breeze, or her elevation properly. Now she would not have the time to set up another shot, as the troop was fleeing.

Her second shot she aimed at the middle of the fleeing monkeys. There were many of them, and this was to her advantage if nothing else was. She angled her bow again, and fired, and this time it hit a baboon in the arm, sending it hurtling downward as its companions fled.

Tinnok's ears picked up on a distressed wail, high pitched and one of infancy, and realized of a sudden she had most certainly hit one of the mothers with a baby. Sheathing her bow she took a step back and then ran along the thick branch she had been perching on, waiting until she heard the telltale creak she had become used to that warned her it could no longer support her weight before launching herself outward, arms spread into the next tree, falling 15 feet before she was able to latch onto another branch that would support her weight. Djed flowed easily into her fingers and feet and claws sent her scaling the trunk, now only one tree over from where the troop had been, approaching a wailing noise of pain.

A curled blue form clung weakly onto a branch on the opposite side of the trunk she had landed on. Tinnok dropped down several branches, seeing that her arrow had caught the wanolo squarely in her shoulder, its tip sprouting out of the front of her chest. Dark crimson matted the beautiful fur of the monkey as she hissed at Tinnok, her little infant, a strange light blue grey color squealing non stop upon her back, still shocked from the sudden and rough fall.

Tinnok wasted no time in drawing her dagger, one hand gripping the baboon's neck, the other driving the knife up through her skull, ending her misery. Letting the resulting blood dribble its way through the canopy, Tinnok wiped her dagger on her shirt, and sheathed it, drawing the corpse of the mother onto the branch with her, and slowly reaching for the infant. Though she knew all creatures could sense her Phylonura, her smooth hairless skin was clearly foreign to the infant and it screeched and sank its small, but nevertheless small teeth into her finger, drawing blood and making Tinnok curse and draw back her hand suddenly, worrying the baby baboon further.

She ran her hand absentmindedly through the mother's fur, then sighed. For now the infant would cling to her back, not truly knowing her fate. Using some of the hemp rope she carried with her, she fashioned the mother upon her own back, the infant still clinging desperately to her. At the very least she would have food for her and Tsuya, when she returned to the caverns, she could decide what to do with the infant.
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Tinnok
A Witch of the Wilds
 
Posts: 888
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Hunting Pt 1

Postby Keene Ward on February 20th, 2015, 3:13 am

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“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without."
- Poirot


Tinnok :
Skills:
  • Acrobatics | +3 EXP
    Longbow | +1 EXP
    Stealth | +3 EXP
    Tracking | +3 EXP
    Climbing | +1 EXP
    Weapon: Dagger | +1 EXP
    Hunting | +3 EXP
    Knot Tying | +1 EXP
    Intelligence | +3 EXP
    Land Navigation | +3 EXP
    Morphing | +4 EXP
    Organization | +1 EXP
    Philosophy | +1 EXP
    Planning | +3 EXP
    Research | + 1 EXP
    Running | +2 EXP
    Tactics | +2 EXP
Lores:
  • Tracking: Discerning Track Types
    Tracking: Wanolo Baboons
    Running: Polynura Meditative State
    Philosophy: The Strength of Trees
    Morphing Model: Bark - Sappling
    Research: A Step by Step Process
    Longbow: Accounting for Distance
    Longbow: Accounting for Height
    Polynura: Synergy With Plant Models - Morphing


Post Script :
WHY ARE YOU HUNTING MY BEAUTIFUL TAPIRS?!

But in all seriousness, good thread! I haven't taken time to get to reading morphing threads yet, and this was an interesting (and creative) way of working on a plant based model. I enjoyed the running as well! You made running interesting for me to read, which... Maybe not the most amazing achievement ever, but I still thinks it's neat. :) I wasn't super worried about magical fatigue as there's a Part 2, so yup! Nice job!

Baby Boon. :(
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