(M&M) RWBY One-Shot IC: Welcome to Beacon!

[Dodgeson]

It's a beautiful sunny day in Vale with not a cloud in the sky, this gives a near perfect view of the Emerald Forest below as you and your future schoolmates are each directed to stand on one of the launchers by Headmaster Ozpin and the stern Professor Goodwitch. Once you are all in position he clears his throat with a cough to gather your attention "For many of you today represents the end of a long road but the beginning of something far more challenging, today each of you will be sorted in to teams that will last for the rest of your time here at Beacon. I am sure you have heard the rumors and these are correct, the first person you make eye contact with upon landing will become your partner for the next four years. Once you have been partnered make your way to the western end of the forest, the entire area teems with the creatures Grimm, do not hold back or you will die."

Suppressing a sigh at her colleague's dramatic pronouncement Professor Goodwitch shakes head, pushing her glass up in to place "We will be monitoring and grading you until you return here but we will not intervene no matter what. In the forest you will find several relics, you may return only when you and your partner have each claimed one of them."

"Now are there any questions?"

[Ionbound]

Odessa simply grins as she drops into a ready position, bow raised, shaking her head slightly as her ears perk while she listens for any hint of Grimm creatures nearby.

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception: (1d20+10)[13]

[The_Admiral]

George stands at ready, lance drawn as he listen attentively, prepared to be launched into the Grimm infested forest.

[Amaril]

As Goodwitch finishes her explanation, Arthur takes up a ready stance on his platform, tensing to leap off as it fires for maximum distance. With his left hand, he reaches into one of his belt pouches and withdraws a small air crystal, cut about the size of a ping-pong ball. He turns it in his fingers absently as he scans the forest below. "Is there a time limit?" he calls to the teachers, holding his stance rather than raising his hand.

[Dodgeson]

"Not as such." The Headmaster responds "Though your time will be factored in to your grade." Hot on Arthur's heels several other students are quick to ask questions of their own before Professor Goodwitch silences them with a wave of her riding crop before the students start being launched in to the air one by one.

((No dice just yet, best landing strategy gets a hero point ))

[Ionbound]

Odessa swears as she's launched into the air, but quickly regains composure, calculating where she's going to aim. Once she knows her trajectory, she fires several arrows into a tree that she'll be passing close to and, in a display of Prince of Persia-esque acrobatics, catches onto the top one and swings around it a few times to kill her momentum before clambering down the ladder she made for herself.

[Amaril]

Taking a deep breath and swallowing his nerves as the girl next to him is launched skyward, Arthur springboards off his own platform as it fires, hurling himself as far into the forest as possible. Keeping his limbs close to his body to stay aerodynamic, he clutches his crystal tightly and tries to estimate his landing site. As the ground rushes closer, he flips over to land feet-first and focuses his Aura, simultaneously raising his barrier and holding another, unshaped charge of energy at the ready. Just before landing, he forces the extra energy into the crystal, shaping the released power into a cushion of air beneath his feet; the spell slows his fall just enough to allow his barrier to absorb the remainder of the force, and he crashes to the forest floor on one knee. He allows himself a brief, self-satisfied grin before rising--that landing strategy might be difficult, dangerous, and cost him a valuable air crystal, but it just looks so cool.
Regaining his feet, Arthur turns back to the cliffs, trying to judge the best direction to head in. Well, if they want everyone to have a fair shot at getting to the relics, they're probably just a straight shot from the start--otherwise the people on one end of the line would have a huge advantage. Turning his back directly to the way he came, then adjusting his heading slightly to compensate for being off-center, he sets off at a run, hoping he's picked the right course. Wonder who I'll run into first...

Spoiler: OOC

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Forgot to mention, this consumes one of my air crystals, so I only have 4 uses of Wind Launch left.

[The_Admiral]

As the panel launched him into the air, George realised his first big mistake, his lance had insufficient impulse to halt his descent. He began improvising, extending the footrests of his lance, he placed his feet there, his left hand holding onto the handle as the tip opened up, the dust infusion core firing in bursts, providing some lift.

Looking around he picked a tree, redirecting his horizontal motion towards it and as a pike like object extended from Aegis. A blade of Aura formed around the pike as he buried it into the tree, forming a deep gash as it slowed his descent to a halt. Retracting the footrests, he points the tip of the lance at the tree, firing it once again to remove Aegis from the bark and propel him from it. He lands on his hands and feet without further issue.

Getting up, he starts slowly pushing his way forward, beginning his search for the relics.

[Milo v3]

Amber was surprised by the force of being launched, so for the first few seconds she's pretty sure she was flailing in the air. Okay, just need to land without going splat....

She opened her eyes wider and let her semblance flow out of her, for a split second everything stopped, it used to be amazingly jarring. The girl started to look at what would be a safe area to land in, repeatedly stopping time to get a better picture of her surroundings rather than having everything be a blur. It was mainly just a near infinite amount of trees, but she could see a few clearings here and there.

The time stops helped immensely, not only was amber slowly tilting her body so it changed direction subtly, but each time she stopped her bodies momentum slowed slightly. But she was quickly realizing that as she started to drop she was still going to fast, amber started spamming her semblance to a ridiculous degree in an attempt to "not go splat".

Aiming for a clearing she hit it's edge, smashing through the canopy... she probably would've landed on her feet if it weren't for those leaves and branches.....

[Dodgeson]

((Okay those were all great, everyone take a hero point))

Amber's collision with the canopy is accompanied by the loud cawing of disturbed Nevermore nests. A quintet of white masked beasts swooping out of the air and circling over head waiting for the young thief turned huntress to give them an opening.

Amber roll for initiative

Unfortunately for Arthur, professors Ozpin and Goodwitch are not the only ones that saw his descent and soon the sound of several more pairs of feet join his own footfalls along with the howls of the pack of Beowolves that are hot on his heels.

At the bottom of the tree Odessa finds herself in an overgrown clearing with not a sound to be heard, no animal calls or movement in the undergrowth, nothing. It's quiet, too quiet.

Odessa make a Perception check

Pushing his way through the forest George will be able to here the howl of Beowolves off in the distance, far enough away that he would be able to avoid them if he wished and continue his way through the woods, a path well traveled if the markings on the nearby trees are anything to go by.

[Milo v3]

On instinct she started to freeze time over and over, which let her see just how many of the grim she "disturbed"....

"....uh... this's bad..."
She knew it wasn't the smartest thing to say, but the nevermore probably don't understand anyway. Ok... Need to find a way to reach those birds...

Amber glanced around to try and find a tree that she could jump up, aiming for one with branches that look strong. Immediately the girl darts towards the best tree she could find, speeding herself with her semblance, and leaps trying to swing herself onto the top of a branch.

Spoiler

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Initiative: (1d20+25)[33]
Athletics: (1d20+5)[13]

[The_Admiral]

George squinted as he heard the sound, turning his head towards the source of the howls as it stopped him in his tracks. He began moving rapidly to circumvent the Grimm, he was confident in his skills not suicidal. As he moved, he kept a ear out for the distinctive sound of dust weaponry.

Spoiler

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Sorry Amaril George prefers that battles be one sided.

[Ionbound]

Odessa hits the ground low, ears perking and swiveling as she mutters, "Too quiet...Something's wrong..."

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception: (1d20+10)[27]

[Amaril]

Keeping up his pace despite the sounds of the pursuing pack, Arthur starts scanning around surreptitiously--partially trying to pick out the Beowolves' positions, and partially to find a good location to turn and make this a stand-up fight. No sense in just continuing on with them hot on his heels, when he could easily blunder into more Grimm and just make things worse. As soon as he reaches a suitable clearing, he plants his heels and skids to a halt, turning back to face the oncoming attack. "Okay, uglies...let's dance."

Spoiler: Initiative

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(1d20+6)[18]

[Dodgeson]

Even with the angry flurry of feathers all around her and the threat of imminent danger Amber manages to find purchase on the tree branch putting her on something of an even playing field with her soulless opponents.

Spoiler: OOC

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Getting on the branch is a move action which leaves you with your standard action

The markings on the trees become more and more frequent as George continues on his path, the sound of the Beowolves becoming ever fainter until they fade to almost nothing. Fairly soon he'll find the path terminating in front of a large and foreboding cave.

Odessa may regret those words, her sharp faunus senses quickly picking up on the reason for the silence. A few feet away from the clearing, partially obscured by the area's wild growth is the yawning mouth of a cave made even easier to spot by what is probably another student nearby. ((If there's a description of George I've missed so if you could fill that in for me Admiral?))

In a flash the mob of Grimm are upon Arthur, a mass of claws and fangs and hatred and whilst several of them merely bounce off of the protection afforded to your by your aura a pair of the foul beasts do manage to score more than a glancing blow.

Arthur make 2 DC 19 Toughness Saves

[The_Admiral]

As he walked, George reviewed his knowledge of Grimm as to the creatures other than Beowolves that may stalk the forest he is walking through and as he comes across the opening, he halts his walk, looking at the cave, pondering if mayheps the relics lay there.

Spoiler

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Grimm Lore
(1d20+5)[16]

[Ionbound]

Odessa's eyes narrow, and then she grins and whistles, trying to attract Georgie's attention.

[The_Admiral]

"Who's there!?" George ask as the whistle drew his attention. He turned to face the source of the sound.

[Ionbound]

A young woman with black hair and green eyes emerges from the brush. She frowns, her fox ears marking her heritage as a faunus as she says in a quiet but urgent tone, "Hush! Can't you hear that?"

[The_Admiral]

"Hear what?" he enquired, already much quieter as he glanced at his surroundings, the girl was a faunus, it would be foolish not to trust her hearing over his own.

[Ionbound]

Odessa nods and whispers back, "Nothing, can't you tell? There are no birds singing, no little rustling sounds of small animals...Something big is nearby, scared them all off. So we need to be very, very quiet unless you think it would be a good idea to fight whatever scared everything."

[The_Admiral]

George nods as he glanced around, cursing himself silently for not noticing the unnatural quietness. "Thanks, I was actually considering entering that cave," he replied, throwing a glance towards the foreboding entrance.

"So, any idea where we're supposed to go?" he asked approaching her as he edged away from the cave mouth.

[Dodgeson]

Spoiler: Well I was gonna wait for everyone else but...

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Backing up the faunus's claims you know from your own studies that several varieties of Grimm are known to make their lairs in caves ranging from your fairly run of the mill Ursa all the way up to something as dangerous as a King Taijitu.

[Ionbound]

Odessa shrugs and says, "I don't know. I was hoping whoever I ran into would have a clue...I guess there's nothing to do but to search for it."

[The_Admiral]

"Well then first order of business is to get as far away from this cave as possible, come on" George says, gesturing to her as he starts carefully and slowly walking away from the cave.

[Ionbound]

Odessa nods and says, "Indeed," as she scales a tree and hops from branch to branch, keeping an eye on the forest floor and George from above.

Spoiler: OOC

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Acrobatics Check to stay in the canopy: (1d20+10)[17]

[The_Admiral]

"So I guess we're partners, what's your name? I've got to call you something." he asks offhandedly as he walks through the jungle.

[Ionbound]

Odessa nods and calls down, "I'm Odessa. You?"

[The_Admiral]

"George, George Graine, nice to meet you." he replied

[Milo v3]

The ex-thief made sure her stance was steady, or at least steady-ish, and focused on her feathered foes. Moving her left hand behind her, she gripped her mechanical staff and readied herself to strike.

Spoiler

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Ready a standard action, to attack a nevermore that comes within range.
Attack Check: (1d20+6)[9]
Damage Rank: 8