PTU: The Beginning

[MrE]

Juliet gathered berries quickly and then made her way over to the rocky-rhino that lay nearby, still bandaged. Weak as it now was, it was quite pitiful. She knelt near its head, making sure to move slowly and cautiously.

"Hey, fella. Are you alright?"

Spoiler

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Charm! (1d6+1)[5]

[Arcran]

As the party attempts to gather berries, the work is fairly quick. The small, darkish-blue berries prove to be perfectly edible and, in a short while, the party has managed to collect a very large quantity, enough to sustain the group of four for at least another day. They seem to be standard berries with nothing particularly interesting about them save for one found by Clara that the dogs sniff with great interest, obviously interested by it.

At Juliet's advance, the great stone monster tries to struggle to its feet, hatred in its eyes, only to fall back down down on its side, bellowing in pain and rage.

Spoiler: Loot

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You guys get 14 rations! I've added it to the map.

Clara finds a Sitrus Berry!

[Hefty Lefty]

"You got a death wish or somethin'?" Wes directs his attention for the first time towards Juliet's attempts to revive the rock rhino. "Let's kill this thing before it gets up again." He scowls at the empty water bottle and two small metal clips which used to hold the athletic bandages near Juliet's feet. "And quit wasting our supplies. We're not even halfway to the power plant; we need those for ourselves."

[Tybar]

Marcus frowns at that, finishing up his gathering, wishing they had found more.

"I would hate to leave this beast to those...things, but it definitely looks still ready to kill us."

[carnackiArdent]

Clara inspects the standout berry curiously, wondering why the dogs seem so interested in it as they look over the rest of the berries they collected. It certainly seems a bit different from the rest.

The monster's bellow makes her jump, and she looks over at Juliet in concern, knowing how badly injured she was in the fight. She tries not to get involved in the argument... though she has to admit that the rhino really doesn't look too friendly. She'd feel a lot safer with it on their side, sure, but she has her doubts about how likely it is to come over to their side. "Do you really think you can persuade it to help us?" she asks quietly - as the one who threw acid in the thing's face.

[MrE]

"Look, the pups, they've proved helpful, and we all ought to be proof that being touched by the Light doesn't make you a monster. I just think, if any animal was in this guy's position he'd have reacted the way it did. But... I know I'm not the best at all of this, so it may take more than one of us to convince it. And I think it is worth the risk and the resources." By the time Juliet finished her face had turned red with emotion and she was glaring at the others, daring them to respond.

[Hefty Lefty]

Wes has never been afraid to step up to her. "The dogs reacted like that because they're babies! They were just attacked and their mother died. They needed us and didn't know any better." Wes looks down at his red dog for but a moment, then continues. "This big guy," Wes gives the injured rhino a swift kick to the side, but it's a rather stupid move as all it accomplishes is hurting the boy's toes. "This assh*le could've killed us all. And will kill us all." Wes' voice is booming at this point, a complete disregard for where he is and the caution he should be taking. "Don't let a few little dogs make you forget the hundreds of greyskins over the better half of your life. We need to kill every one of these. Don't get soft on me now, Jules."

[Tybar]

Marcus glances around as Wes raises his voice. It was worth a shot. Casey was alright, so were the pups. We can't fight the entire world by ourselves.

He sighs a bit though, and pats the creature for a moment. That said, he seems mad still. We shouldn't risk much more.

[carnackiArdent]

"If we can get it to help us... I'm not saying I wouldn't rather have it on our side than against us, but..." Clara sighs.

"I've been thinking." No she hasn't, this has just occurred to her now, in the stress of losing Toby and Sinclair and the argument over the rhino, and she's just babbling as she goes along, jumping along the slippery slope. She was all of nine when the world fell down, no one taught her about logical fallacies, and she doesn't like arguments. "What are we going to do when we get back to camp? We can hide ourselves - we were already - and we can probably get away with the puppies, but what do you think everyone's going to do when we walk into camp with a rhino made out of rocks behind us? Aron brought that witch-hunt down on Stephen, and on everyone else who changed and didn't hide it enough, and they all still looked the same." Well, mostly. Everyone has their tells - her hair, Sinclair's agyria. "Nobody can pretend that thing isn't Light-touched. I mean, even if we could disguise it, I don't even remember what a normal rhinoceros looked like. Are there even any anymore? And we know they aren't all bad, but everybody left in the camp will either think they are, or be too scared to speak up. Just like after Aron turned on Stephen. Like me."

She gets louder and more obviously distraught as she goes on, and tears are running down her cheeks and fogging up her glasses as she finishes. This is a bad habit of Clara's, her tendency to suddenly tip over into a nervous breakdown over one thing after stresses and emotions have been building up. It's happened before; two weeks after her parents were lost in a greyskin raid she ended up having a screaming fit over dropping a beaker. And when it happens she has a tendency to drag any and all of her own character flaws or things that have gone wrong in her life regardless of how related they are to the subject at hand. In this case it may partly be an attempt to derail the argument - throwing a tantrum to stop the others fighting - but her histrionics turned genuine alarmingly rapidly, and now there's a slight sparkle of blue light playing on the fogged lenses of her glasses.

[Tybar]

Marcus kneels down next to Clara. I don't know what we'll do after this, but we'll figure something out. If we train it well enough, we might be able to say we tamed it.

He sighs and looks around, having not really thought those questions through himself. Also...what if he already knows about us?

[Arcran]

As Clara begins to wonder about the future, Caramel slides up next to her, gently nuzzling her trainer in an attempt to comfort her.

As the group talks, the great stone beast slowly rises to its feet, snorting angrily at the group. With a few loping strides it begins to charge, although not at the party. A nearby berry tree seems to be the goal but, halfway there, the beast stumbles and falls, sliding headlong into the giant wooden obstacle. The tree shudders under the impact of the monster, a lone berry falling to the ground. The rhino strains towards it but, in its weakened state, it seems to be unable to rise and the berry is just out of reach.

[Tybar]

Marcus blinks, but walks over, carefully, and rolls the berry to the beast's mouth.

[Arcran]

As the berry rolls towards the mouth of the creature it strains towards it, attempting to reach it. As the small orb finally rolls close enough to the mouth of the monster it eagerly snaps it up, juice flying everywhere as it eviscerates the berry. It sighs as it closes its eyes, slumping forward somewhat.

[carnackiArdent]

Clara hasn't thought at all about the idea of Aron already knowing about them. Her people skills at work again. And right now she's too stressed out emotionally to consider the implications. Despite Marcus's attempt at comfort, she's just about to start on another rant when the beast's struggle draws her - and no doubt everyone's - attention.

She just slumps down to watch, stroking Caramel's fur gently as the puppy attempts to comfort her. She does know that she's probably the worst person to try and help win over the rhino - being the one who really provoked it and splashed acid all over its face. Speaking of which, she ought to try and find ingredients for more of her various concoctions at some point... but not just now. She'll just... curl up on the ground and cuddle her puppy while she tries to calm down.

[Hefty Lefty]

Wes sighs. He plucks a berry from the bush and feeds it to the scrawny, hungry red dog at his feet. "This thing isn't like Champ or Courage, Marcus. These pups used to be dogs before the Light." Wes talks out of his *ss as if he has a clue. "That's why they act like dogs; they've got the instinct still in 'em. They want owners. This thing... it's a rhino. Even without the evil Light f*cking it up, you wouldn't have a pet rhino, right?" Wes stops for a moment to ponder the thought. "...as bad *ss as that sounds..."