Bad Company [Rayne & Death]

Rayne was glad that he shook off her gratitude as smoothly as he did without lingering on it at all. That would have made things very uncomfortable for her. It would have gone even more smoothly if he'd said nothing at as if it had never happened. As it was though, she'd take what she could get in this instance. She slipped her weapons into their holsters as the man excused himself to head over closer to the naga.

For a moment her injury stole her attention. It wasn't a grievous wound, but it was on her hand and that would make her slow on the draw for at least a little while. Wouldn't do to walk around with the weapon just hanging around in her hand either, it would cramp up and then where would she be? Rayne rubbed her fingers over one of the scratches and winced before giving a sigh and turning her attention back to the man she'd saved.

He, was gesticulating over the corpse and speaking strange words. Whatever he was doing, he put a lot of effort into it, and by the time he was done he was covered in sweat as if he'd fought a second naga. She arched an eyebrow at him, about to ask him if what he'd done was worth what he'd put into it, and that's when he opened his mouth.

"Hey, you have great aim and I can maybe keep us alive while you kill things." He wheezed as he spoke. "for us." Rayne arched an eyebrow at him, feeling the first prickle of anger spiking upwards at his assumption that she would want to keep fighting monsters with him. The anger quickly fizzled however when he toppled over from his exhaustion. It was the perfect opportunity to just... let him fall.

A smile broke out over her face as he hit the ground, and she stood there watching him archly. "I suppose that I could do that... if you can get up off the ground." She snorted and shook her head at him before deciding to offer him a hand up. Rayne wiggled her fingers at him. "You alright?"

Death Incarnate came to with his face buried in the dirt, nose sore, hat thrown to the side somewhere.. Today was not going how he thought it was going to go.

"You alright?"

comes from right above him.  Am I alright?  What just happened? How long was I out? What is going on? Rolling over onto his back, Death Incarnate looks up at the woman above him, offering a hand up.  At first, he looks at it like what is a hand doing there?  As the fog continues to clear, he reaches up after but a moment's hesitation and grabs her hand to get himself up.

"I think I'm okay.. That has never happened before.  All I remember is kneeling down to drain the soul of Naga and then waking up face down with my nose hurting.  What happened? "
It was this time that Scarn came up and flitted up to his shoulder and perched there happily.
Upon closer inspection, Death could see that his new spell of "Bone Armour" was doing everything he thought it would and more.

Hovering the mouse over the icon and seeing 1 minute per level was nice. "Well, I guess both of us should have this, shouldn't we, my dear!? Bwaahahahahahahaha" Drake clicked the mouse on himself and cast Bone Armour while the other fist was raised into the air shaking menacingly.

Death Incarnate raised his hand and touched his chest as bits of bone started developing around his body.

The man stared at her hand for a very long time. Long enough that she started to feel a little bad for letting him fall down. Had he hit his head? If so, did he have a concussion effect? She'd never had one herself, and it was a pretty rare effect, but she'd heard of it. Or maybe it was just exhaustion? Rayne watched him get to his feet speculatively. He seemed alright?

At least until he started talking and then he only confirmed her suspicions that there was something wrong with him. Warily she stepped closer, trying to get a better look at him, but she wasn't a cleric. She still might have been able to tell something, but he was dae'u, and how did one tell if a dae'u was okay. At least his hat was missing so that she could actually see his face clearly.

While she tried to get the measure of him he lifted a hand to his chest, causing bone to slide up from the ground and cover his body. Which reminded her of the cracked armor that was still on her... Yuck. She frowned down at the bones but didn't complain. They'd saved her butt so she couldn't say anything against them even if they were grotesque. "You did your mojo, then took a few steps and tipped over like a kettle. Dropped right to the ground. It's a bit weird that you don't remember that."

Disconcerting was the word. "Anyways, if you're up for it I'm headed into the temple. There's supposed to be some good items in there, and a quest." She rolled her shoulders. "I'd get it if you want to log though, maybe ask a dev why you lost a few seconds."

Death Incarnate felt the armor continuing to piece itself together, forming a full suit over the next ten seconds or so.  While it was starting to form, He looked over at this rather tall human woman with crimson black hair, and stormy blue eyes that seemed to change to a softer shade the longer they talked. The Bone Armour he had cast on her was still cracked in 2 places.  
"This is some sturdy stuff." Thought Death Incarnate to himself.
When he got to her hands while inspecting the Bone Armour and how it looked on a woman vs a man, he noticed that this woman had blood on her hand from the Naga fight. Feeling completely responsible for having ruined her hunt, he needed to fix it.

"If you would like, I can heal that wound for you.  I feel responsible for you even having that." He said while nodding over to her hand with a half hearted finger gesture in the same direction to point at her hand.

A gust of wind crossed the area, assaulting Death Incarnate's hair, whipping him across his face reminding him that his hat is not on his head.  He looked directly at the woman, realizing that she was staring right at his eyes. Eye contact was made and held for a fraction of a second before Death Incarnate went to retrieve his hat. Death's blank stare was chilling to most, as his eye sockets were void of any material and instead replaced by crackling electricity that formed what one might call 'eyes'.  After smoothing his hair down to it's proper placement, He put his hat on and walked back over to her, this time standing withing reaching distance of her and slowly outstretched his hand out as if seeking permission, not going far past his own personal space.

"Sorry about that, I wear a hat for a reason.  May I heal you?" Death's face was once again shrouded while focusing on her bleeding hand.  "If it is infected, I can't do much for you, but I can heal you now to prevent it from getting infected." nodding towards her hand that looked like it was starting to change color and swell.

"OOC Death Incarnate doesn't know what a Dev is, I'm just role playing like he lost some time.  Thank you for the suggestion though!" Drake hoped this other player wasn't a complete stick in the mud and would go along with his character actually being role played.  He got ignored by too many others that just didn't want to play like that.

"What is this 'Dev' you speak of, by the way?" Death asked her. "Is it a quest item?"

The other man's polite request to heal her made her stare at him. It wasn't terribly polite of her, but she didn't care overly much. She was trying to measure if he was being actually sincere or if he was just trying to hold her hand. This meant staring into his eyes which were now uncovered by his lack of a hat.

Only, he didn't have eyes.

Instead what he did have was sparkling electricity instead of them. Which she could admit was a pretty cool option if entirely unnatural and somehow discomforting. Without her realizing it they ended up staring at one another for several long seconds before he hastily retrieved his hat and put it back on. With his hat on he was far more natural looking. He could have passed for a sickly-looking human now.

Once more he held his hand out to her and feeling a bit guilty about staring at him she finally relented and offered up her hand. "I suppose so. Wouldn't want an infection." She tried not to be too uncomfortable being touched by a stranger, just standing there as still as she could manage while allowing him to heal her. Suddenly it occurred to her that she wasn't even sure that necromancers could use healing spells. Surely he knew his own options though.

"OOC Death Incarnate doesn't know what a Dev is, I'm just role playing like he lost some time. Thank you for the suggestion though!"

What the fuck is role playing? Or ooc for that matter? The thought echoed in her head like a bell, and she sort of stared at him again, feeling like he might be playing a joke on her. His tone of voice was completely different, and his next words only served to confuse her even more.

"Ah, never mind." Maybe he'd hit his head harder than she'd originally anticipated. "Lets just focus on the temple yea? I want to get this mission done before it gets too late. I'm Rayne by the way. I take it yours is Death... Incarnate? That's a bit heavy isn't it." Not a question.


Meanwhile, in reality Rhyn pulled open a search bar and started typing in 'what is ooc'. If the search pulled up something weird she was so out of there...

Quote :

OOC is an acronym that stand for out of character. It is often used in role-playing when a person wants to break character or in fanfiction when a writer is expressing concern that a character was not himself in a certain scene or instance of dialogue. The opposite of OOC is BIC (back in character)

Not some sort of weird thing then, he was just... playing up the fact that this was a game. He was pretending that he was actually 'Death Incarnate'. Since she played the game to escape real life herself, she could understand the appeal even if it was a bit... over the top to think of oneself as being the embodiment of death. From there it was easy to guess what 'role playing' was. He was playing the role of his character.

She could work with that.

"I suppose so. Wouldn't want an infection." was the answer given.  Death reached out and grasped her hand with his and used his spell "Drain Life", knowing full well what it would cost.  

The flesh on Rayne's hand begins to slowly knit itself back together, while the nerves in the area are tingling from the feeling of newly formed flesh.  As the spell continues to work and Rayne's hand begins healing, there is a change on the corresponding hand of Death Incarnate.  A cut opens up and begins to bleed.  A very similar mark pattern to the one that She had, but maybe a little deeper and wider. Blood slowly starts to show small dots on the glove where the new wound is opening.

"Ah, never mind. Lets just focus on the temple yea? I want to get this mission done before it gets too late. I'm Rayne by the way. I take it yours is Death... Incarnate? That's a bit heavy isn't it."

"There we go, right as rain!" Death exclaimed. "Urmm.. no pun intended, but it works!"

"OOC Thank you so much for not just putting me on ignore!!  You won't regret this!" Drake wiggled around in his chair excited that he may have found someone to play with. "See, Leia, you aren't the ONLY woman in my life now!!" Drake laughed heartily at his lame joke as 'The Final Countdown' was coming to an end.

Death looks Rayne over and sees she is no worse for wear.  "Yes, my name is Death Incarnate.  How did you know that?" He looks over at Scarn who blinks rapidly as if right on queue.  "Have you finally started talking... of course not to ME..." Death's words had sorrow in them. "Anyway, hello Rayne, nice to have made your acquaintance.  Maybe during our walk to get treasures you can explain to me how you came to know my name without me telling you?  Oh and 'yes'.  Let us begin our journey before it gets too dark." Death hoped that while in the daylight, it would be harder Rayne to sneak items from under his nose and take all the loot for herself. Someone that quick has GOT to be have some hidden agenda.

Rayne was paying close enough attention to her hand in his to realize that he was wounding himself to heal her, but she said nothing on the matter. Still, it made her uncomfortable. She couldn't heal him after all. She might have grumbled something along those lines to herself, but he gave her back her hand and she took it with a little shake to make sure everything was still working okay. Sure enough there wasn't even a twinge of pain.

"Thanks." It was a brief bit of gratitude, but it was far more than she usually offered to people. Somehow she still felt oddly like she should apologize for something in dealing with him. People doing oddly nice things for her usually left her feeling that way. Irritably she ignored the sensation and looked away from him as he spoke up, making a pun out of her name.

Oh yes. She'd never heard that one before. Rayne sighed and shook her head, only to look back up at him when he said 'ooc' again, and thanked her for not blocking him. Maybe she should have. He was probably some kind of weirdo. She palmed her face and rubbed her eyes, not looking up again until he started talking once more, leading the way into the temple.

"You..." Oh right. Death hadn't told her his name. He'd ooc'd it. She wasn't cut out for this. Rayne shrugged uncomfortably. "I heard it from someone. Don't know his name."

There, all true and now she wasn't breaking his game. This was so weird.

After a few steps she pulled Knack from her thigh holster, holding the weapon loosely in her right hand and cautiously edging ahead of him. "I'll go first, I think I'm a little more durable than you are, and since you can heal me if I get hurt it makes sense for you to stay back a little." She motioned with her hand just in case her words weren't quite enough. "Keep an eye out for traps, the temples out here are full of them."

With those few words of caution she headed forward, deeper into the dungeon. There were strange markings written out on the walls of stone around them, written in a language that she couldn't read. She doubted anyone could. It was pretty though whatever it was, often depicting tiny images of people holding what looked like leaves or other objects. She found several small traps moving as slowly as she was, pointing them each out to Death so that he could avoid them as well, and then catching sight of a broad open area ahead of them she slowed down even further. Trap.

She was certain of it, but there was no sign of anything wrong with the floor, the walls, or even the ceiling. Rayne ran her fingers over the wall carefully, but there were no holes or cracks. Just a door on the far side of a huge open entryway that practically yelled 'boobytrap' to her mind. "I don't like the looks of it, do you see anything that might be a trap?"

Fair enough.  Death had already made a name for himself around a few different towns.  It seemed like nobody had aspirations to be a Necromancer or even liked his kind for that matter.  He was made fun of because he spent all of his time focusing on getting stronger and stronger summons, but never the ability to get to the monsters that he needed to kill to get these strong summons.

"I'll show them all when we come back with loot that nobody else has been able to get yet!" Death said to himself.
At this point Rayne began walking away and reached to the holster on her right leg to pull out one of her pistols.
"I'll go first, I think I'm a little more durable than you are, and since you can heal me if I get hurt it makes sense for you to stay back a little."
At this, Death's eyes widened as he thought to himself, "I hope it doesn't come to that." The warning was followed by a hand gesture indicating the same command. "Keep an eye out for traps, the temples out here are full of them."

Following this woman was no easy task for Drake.  He had spent all of Death Incarnate's levels on stronger magic and summons.  Why didn't he put more into sneaking? Drake felt his butthole pucker while winding his way through this myriad of traps that this other player just seemed to breeze through.
"Oh please Death, please make it through here... PLEASE make it through here!!"
Drake silently repeated to himself like a mantra while being as careful as he could with the controls to make sure that this would be a fun experience for this other player and not ruin their fun yet again.

Death Incarnate moved slower than Rayne as it was, not to mention sneaking. "I never sneak around. I hope she doesn't think I'm going to be good at this..." Death muttered softly under his breath.
Death's movements were semi-erratic as every trap that Rayne had pointed out was skirted by significantly more than was necessary till arriving at her location to hear her ask if he saw any traps.

Death stared at her kinda blankly for a second. "I'm not really that kind of Necromancer."
At this point Bone Armour started to form over both of their bodies, refreshing the armour that had fallen away some time ago while sneaking through traps.
"But, I can do this."
Death bowed his head, closed his eyes and began incanting:

"Souls of the dead, hear my cry; and do my bidding until you die.
Arise with flesh, bone and sinew.  Back to the grave after this, I'll send you!"

Death's eyes flashed open, the electricity in them flaring wildly for a split second as a form began to swirl in front of him.  

The skeleton of the summon was the first to materialize. The bone marrow began swirling in the air at first, shapeless and growing. As more and more bone marrow began materializing to form the entirety of the spine, some of the other areas began to cover the marrow with scraps of bone till reaching the full maturity of the skeleton of a Naga.

Death fell to his knees, winded from having summoned such a powerful creature. "I did it... I actually did it!", gasped Death Incarnate  while watching the continuing summon of the creature.

"I'm not really that kind of Necromancer."

Rayne blinked at his response. If he wasn't the sort of necromancer that could spot traps, did that mean that there was a sort that could? Besides which seeing a trap wasn't really a skill one learned. Unless this was a role playing thing. Either way it seemed that the coast looked clear to him, and that meant moving forward, but rather than move forward the necromancer that called himself Death Incarnate closed his eyes and began speaking an incantation.

This one she recognized the words to at least, even though she still had no idea what kind of spell it was that he was casting. Suddenly before them the naga they'd fought before began to form. Bones and sinew formed from the dust on the ground and for just a second she thought that maybe they were in serious trouble. Just a moment before she remembered that he was a necromancer and his words hit her register.

He'd successfully summoned the monster back to life under his command. "Damn." The word left her lips without her permission, but she had to admit that she was impressed. It had to have been a high level summon which meant even if he'd been neglecting how to sneak around, or anything like that, he'd at least been working on the thing that was (possibly) most important to his class.

The summon moved into the big area ahead of them, needing more space to form itself, and as it did a booming voice rang out.

Behind them came a loud crash as a door that Rayne had missed came slamming down, trapping them as the door ahead rose. Mist poured out from the far doorway, and from the mist stepped the champion. It was huge, a hulking metal monstrosity formed of blackish gray material that glittered in the near darkness. It needed no sword as it immediately waded into the naga, gauntlet covered fist grasping the summoned creature by the nearest part and just... pulling.

"Shit." Rayne cursed out loud and pulled her other weapon free, rolling away from Death so that when she fired off her shot it wouldn't pull any attention toward him. She didn't fire right away though, instead she stood where she'd rolled to and took careful aim. The shot needed to penetrate the armor. Look for a weakness. Anything. There had to be something.

Death's summon had drained almost all of his energy.  His own surprise echoed by Rayne.  As the summon moved forward to continue the full materialization of her body, a voice rang out, warning of impending doom, followed by the passage behind them sealing up tighter than Drake's butthole when avoiding traps. Death thought, "Oh, that's not so bad, I hope she brought enough food with her.. we might be h-" His thought was cut short by a Golem issuing out from the mist that had begun to permeate the air, blotting vision of anything beyond.

The Dark Naga had just opened her eyes to conciousness when her arm was grabbed onto by an unnaturally strong force and tugged on.  While being yanked toward the hulking monstrosity, the Dark Naga used the grip to her advantage to pull herself closer to it and rake it across the face with her claws while pinning the other arm of the golem to it's body with her powerful coils.

Death scrambled to his feet in an effort to escape the clutches of this Guardian of the Temple as Rayne tumbled by him to line up a shot. The sound of metal against metal grated on Death's ears as the two Titans clashed it out.  Death moved to the opposite side of the room as Rayne since the pincer attack seemed to work so well on the Naga and waited to see what would happen.