Taking the Initiative [Dark]

[Bee]

Mnem quite cheerfully could have slept for the next week, and it was only with a large degree of reluctance that she put away her sleeping mat and got to her feet. The trail on the mountain, as Minh had pointed out, was narrow and extremely ill-kept, breaking off entirely at points and not picking up for a quarter of a mile. When she got back to the village, Mnem was going to send them all on a death march up this trail, and laugh a sweet, malicious laugh as they dropped dead one by one.

Monty hopped on ahead, apparently volunteering hirself to be a scout and keep an eye out for giant blue marlin monsters and other assorted evils that may be lurking on ahead. The only things s/he found were a lot of squirrels, which were summarily gutted with much enthusiasm.

Hopefully the rest of their journey up would continue without event.

[Kiki]

Bee and Dark receive 2 tokens each, to be redeemed in Ashwin's Shoppe. This will automatically be added to your recorded totals in the shoppe. Congratulations, and keep up the good RP!

[Dark]

Considering the course their journey had taken up to that point, Minh was actually rather baffled they made it to the summit without being washed away in a mudslide or taken hostage and sacrificed to pagan gods by savage rock creatures or lulled to sleep beside an enchanted spring and throttled to death by semi-sentient plant-life or eaten by some enraged water kappa.

She slumped down on the rim and wheezed--it had been a steep climb. The lake, a very large puddle of pristine water, was situated in a basin that had probably once been a volcano, judging from the lava rock and ash-laden soil. Islands, craggy points of soil jutting from a calm surface of aqua, littered the cool expanse. It looked rather peaceful, and not dangerous at all.

"Well, this is rather nice. Where's that dread-marlin we're supposed to be slaying, again?"

[Bee]

Mnem stared at the tranquil lake with the unease of a child who has seen many unfriendly banders before and is just waiting for this one to bite her hand. She did not at all trust the vast expanse of blue.

"Perhaps we need to go fishing for it," she said sourly.

And damn if she didn't spot a ridiculous little boat, about a metre away, tied to a stump and rocking gently in the water. She looked at it incredulously. Had the last people to occupy it come back safely, or had they simply not gone out at all?

She kicked back against a fallen log, since Minh had already found herself a cozy sitting spot. She sure as hell wasn't going out there on that rickety little terror of a boat. The beast would have them trapped, out on a lake and with nowhere to hide.

[Dark]

"Fish is good," Minh eyed the boat speculatively, wondering if Mnem's hair-brained idea was actually plausible. The boat was small, compact, but it was well built and sat low in the water. It wouldn't tip, not easily. But then there was the entire other matter of catching the damn thing, and the fishing pole Minh had concocted wouldn't be strong enough to reel the Marlin in if the fish was as monstrous as the villagers had boasted.

Something would come to her. It had too.

Relaxing, staring out at the lake, her mind wandered off and decided not to come back. It wasn't too much of a tragedy.

Watching, idly, out towards the middle of the lake the water swelled and rolled, and started cutting towards shore. It took awhile for her to wrap her foggy head around it. It was the Marlin, and it was coming right at them.

[Bee]

On one hand, she could totally believe, at this stage of their journey, that they were being attacked by a giant fucking fish. On the other hand, they were being attacked by a giant fucking fish.

She dove out of the way. The Marlin pushed itself into the water, and began beating its huge fins and tail furiously. The water heaved. The damn thing was going to try to wash them out. Neither of them could move fast enough to escape the rush of water--it crashed into them with enough force to knock them dizzy.

Yeah. Now would be a good time to retreat and regroup. Very, very far away. Hopefully the beast would be unable to come out of the water and chase them into the woods. They didn't need to catch the damn thing; they needed to get out there and kill it. Quickly. Viciously. With extreme prejudice.

[Dark]

"So, obviously--we need a plan." Minh shook herself, water flying everywhere and leaving her fur standing straight up. She tried to smooth it down to no avail. "Because that damn thing needs to die."

It was personal now.

Minh scanned the immediate area for ideas, eyes lingering on the pole-thin pines that were growing around the rim of the crater, before continuing her assessment. Her eyes alighted on the obsidian flow--the sharp flakes were everywhere, uncomfortable on the paws and most importantly sharp. Her eyes slid to the pines and then back again, an idea slowly taking form in her head.

"We...are making a spear. We shall use the landscape against the fishy monstrosity--obsidian for the spear point, one of yonder pines for the pole. And then we'll put our lives in the...oars...of that rickety boat and hope for the best. How does that sound?"

Is sounded suicidal--but what else were they going to do?

[Bee]

That sounded awful. But they really didn't have a choice. And at least this way, they would some kind of vaguely effective weapon. The whole logistics of getting out on a pathetic little dinghy to try to stab a giant marlin to death with makeshift spears made actually killing the beast seem like an extremely remote possibility and them getting killed seem quite uncomfortably likely, but--they began to fashion chunks of obsidian into the spearheads.

Mnem, with her wrist, was not particularly useful at this, and her spearhead looked rather...special....but it was pointy, and it looked sturdy enough, so it would serve its purpose. She attached the triangular bit of obsidian to a very thick, long branch. Goddess, this thing looked deformed. They were fucking doomed.

Cheerfully, she said, "Right then! Are were ready to begin our epic adventure out onto the lake? Because I am thrilled."

[Dark]

Minh glanced at the spear Mnem had fashioned and had to struggle not to say anything--the damn thing was deformed, and was unlikely to accomplish much of anything besides maybe serving as good kindling. Maybe they could make a fire out of it after they caught the fish, and cook the damn thing. Something worthwhile had to come out of this endeavor--it might as well be lunch.

Minh slung her spear into the boat--a straight, well-made spear with an actual blade on the end instead of a lumpy, slightly pokey rock--and climbed in. Once Mnem scrambled aboard, she shoved them away from shore and sent up a prayer to a god she didn't believe in. She was really too young to die, and it would be nice if they could make it out of this alive.

She leaned wearily over the edge of the boat as it was carried farther out into the lake, leery of the hundred or so feet of crystal clear water below them. Where was that damn fish?

[Bee]

Now that they were out on the lake, the Marlin did not seem to have much of an interest in coming to eat them. They sat on the serene expanse of water in their sad little vessel, spears in hand, but nothing surfaced: the water was smooth, gently rippling in the wind, showing no signs of activity beneath. Mnem had the distinct sense that the damn thing was taunting them.

Finally, she saw something. The Marlin, in the distance, broke the surface of the water, then submerged itself again. Then closer. And closer. Bobbing up and down, picking up speed, heading toward them with certain malicious intent.

Mnem readied her pathetic little spear in her good hand. Perhaps she could managed to jab it in the eye or something and stab straight through the brain. Or just beat at it repeatedly, which might annoy it to death.

"Minh," she said.