The Hunting Grounds IV: Drops Contain 0% RNG

[8BitNinja]

The hunter chief first replies to Aaron casually. "Here's some water. Anything for a friend." He hands him a large glass of water. He then stares at Guinness confused. "You want to count thousands of gold coins? I suppose you could if you really wanted to, but it would take a while.

Aaron takes a coin and says "I'm not a chemist, but I've worked with some interesting people over the years, and have been paid in gold before, although last time it was bullions instead of coins. Anyways, I learned from a coworker that gold is denser than water, so it will sink." He drops the coin into the water. If the gold coin sinks, then it is fake, but if it floats, it's real gold.

[Green Elf]

[Hunting Camp]

Guinness gives a short laugh as he sits down and starts shifting the gold pieces, sorting and counting them. "Ha, sonny! I might not enjoy the dark, dank caves those stodgy ancestors of mine prefer, but I can count gold as well as any dwarf." Better even, one could argue, since he's all but sold his soul in pursuit of greed.

Aaron takes a coin and says "I'm not a chemist, but I've worked with some interesting people over the years, and have been paid in gold before, although last time it was bullions instead of coins. Anyways, I learned from a coworker that gold is denser than water, so it will sink." He drops the coin into the water. If the gold coin sinks, then it is fake, but if it floats, it's real gold.

I hope Guinness is happy.
Aaron will notice that the coin sinks, but it sinks in a strange way. Most of it goes down while one end of the coin is slightly floating at the bottom. Most likely only part of the coin is fake.

[Reinholdt]

[Hunting Camp]

Happy counting gold pieces (or semi-gold pieces as the case may be)? It seems less an outright joy and more cathartic. It's enjoyable in its own right.

Happy with his life choices? Presumably so, or he would have to reconsider his job. Then again, when bargaining with demons, maybe he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He doesn't seem to have reached that state of fulfillment in his life which most people mean when they refer to happy, but he doesn't seem unhappy with the state of affairs either. He's doing ok for himself as a whole.

[8BitNinja]

I hope Guinness is happy.
Aaron will notice that the coin sinks, but it sinks in a strange way. Most of it goes down while one end of the coin is slightly floating at the bottom. Most likely only part of the coin is fake.

Aaron drops the glass and draws his handgun and points it at his client. He says "Alright, what metal is this? Gold doesn't act like that and you know it."

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

"Hiding? As you wish, I just hope no more violence breaks out." Minerva replies. "So don't attack unless you absolutely have to." She cautions before walking down the path down to the crater.

If he follows her, he will see that she is soon approached by a whole gang of armed people. There are a couple of gnolls, the climbing goblin from before, one human and what appears to be another undead creature, ghoul-like just like Minerva. He appears to be lacking a jaw though...
None of them appear to be their leader or his two body guards however. But they all armed with at least one gun, all aimed at Minerva as she walks closer.

"This is KABAL territory now, scram." One of the gnolls, this one dressed up as some kind of desperado, orders.

Minerva appears to hesitate with so many weapons aimed at her, can spot Kurrack?

[Green Elf]

[Hunting Camp]

Happy counting gold pieces (or semi-gold pieces as the case may be)? It seems less an outright joy and more cathartic. It's enjoyable in its own right.

Happy with his life choices? Presumably so, or he would have to reconsider his job. Then again, when bargaining with demons, maybe he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He doesn't seem to have reached that state of fulfillment in his life which most people mean when they refer to happy, but he doesn't seem unhappy with the state of affairs either. He's doing ok for himself as a whole.

Aaron drops the glass and draws his handgun and points it at his client. He says "Alright, what metal is this? Gold doesn't act like that and you know it."

The hunters, not surprisingly, step way
away from the three. The hunter is disappointed, but yields.
"The half of the metal is brass...but darkened."
He makes a hand signal and a man brings an identical box.
"I'm sorry for this, please just take both and leave"

[Reinholdt]

[Hunting Camp]

Grumbling and scowling, Guinness gets to his feet and pulls out his ritual knife, holding it at the ready. Everything was going so well too. They had to go and ruin his perfectly enjoyable counting mood. "Massimo doesn't take kindly to attempted to double crosses." He'll move to kick open the new box to make sure it actually has anything inside. "Your call boss," Guinness says, looking to Aaron as to whether they should take the bonus payment and leave it at that or make the hunters into an example.

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

"Hiding? As you wish, I just hope no more violence breaks out." Minerva replies. "So don't attack unless you absolutely have to." She cautions before walking down the path down to the crater.

If he follows her, he will see that she is soon approached by a whole gang of armed people. There are a couple of gnolls, the climbing goblin from before, one human and what appears to be another undead creature, ghoul-like just like Minerva. He appears to be lacking a jaw though...
None of them appear to be their leader or his two body guards however. But they all armed with at least one gun, all aimed at Minerva as she walks closer.

"This is KABAL territory now, scram." One of the gnolls, this one dressed up as some kind of desperado, orders.

Minerva appears to hesitate with so many weapons aimed at her, can spot Kurrack?

"Belongs to who? Are they a gang? Corperation? Government?" Kurrack thinks to himself. Kurrack is kind of new to the nexus, and wouldn't know what KABAL actually was. Kurrack is hiding in a tree, pretty well actually, but if a breeze just happened to float from the tree to the nose of that ghoul looking thing, it would probably make some noise.

((I'm assuming that the ghoul-thing has a superior sense of smell. Then again, Kurrack does have a... unique smell that he hasn't made efforts to mask. He may not need super smelling if the wind favors the bad guys.))

Kurrack stays put, but draws his sword. It looks like a fight's almost about to happen, but he doesn't want to make the first blow.

[8BitNinja]

[Hunting Camp]

Grumbling and scowling, Guinness gets to his feet and pulls out his ritual knife, holding it at the ready. Everything was going so well too. They had to go and ruin his perfectly enjoyable counting mood. "Massimo doesn't take kindly to attempted to double crosses." He'll move to kick open the new box to make sure it actually has anything inside. "Your call boss," Guinness says, looking to Aaron as to whether they should take the bonus payment and leave it at that or make the hunters into an example.

While still holding the hunters at gunpoint, Aaron calls into Headquarters on his headset. "Hey Boss, sorry to bother you but the guys tried to pay us in useless money. What should we do?" Aaron turns off the mic to his headset and says to the hunters "Don't think you can get out of this, if you even look like you're about to run, I'll put a .45 ACP round in your head."

[Shadowcaller]

"Belongs to who? Are they a gang? Corperation? Government?" Kurrack thinks to himself. Kurrack is kind of new to the nexus, and wouldn't know what KABAL actually was. Kurrack is hiding in a tree, pretty well actually, but if a breeze just happened to float from the tree to the nose of that ghoul looking thing, it would probably make some noise.

((I'm assuming that the ghoul-thing has a superior sense of smell. Then again, Kurrack does have a... unique smell that he hasn't made efforts to mask. He may not need super smelling if the wind favors the bad guys.))

Kurrack stays put, but draws his sword. It looks like a fight's almost about to happen, but he doesn't want to make the first blow.

[Mysterious Crater]

Minerva raises her hands and immediately stops. "I don't mean any harm, but this is a sacred place. You can't just claim it as your own." She argues, her orb-like eyes carefully surveying the situation, especially the 'ghoul' in the group.

"And who are you to say that? Are you from VIGIL?"

"No? What is-"

"Good. Let's shoot."

And the group all opens fire at her at the gnolls signal. She falls over to the ground as soon as the first bullets starts tearing into her. This could have gone better, hopefully undead weren't so easy to kill...

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

Oh s**t Kurrack mutters. He leaps from the tree, Kroot are crazy good at jumping, and revs his chain-sword. He's looking to get a quick head shot on the ghoul looking thing, then hop to another tree.

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

The ghoul-ish character falls to the ground as Kurrack shots him in the head.
It takes a moment for his trigger happy companions to even realize that he's been shot. "****, there's more of them!" One of the goblins exclaims, gesturing vaguely at the treetops.

Then all hell breaks lose as the gang starts shooting all over the place. "Kill everything that moves!" The gnoll shouts as they continue shooting at basically everything, moving or not.

They aren't very likely to hit Kurrack though.

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

The ghoul-ish character falls to the ground as Kurrack shots him in the head.
It takes a moment for his trigger happy companions to even realize that he's been shot. "****, there's more of them!" One of the goblins exclaims, gesturing vaguely at the treetops.

Then all hell breaks lose as the gang starts shooting all over the place. "Kill everything that moves!" The gnoll shouts as they continue shooting at basically everything, moving or not.

They aren't very likely to hit Kurrack though.

Kurrack leaps into the nearest tree, unscathed.

You're worse than children when it comes to aim! Perhaps they have shooting ranges in your afterlife. Maybe you'll get some practice after I send you there...

Kurrack then silently jumps to another tree, then waits for a response. He wants to scare the men below, and as long as his undead looking friend kept playing dead, Kurrack could drag out the tension as long as need be to set their nerves off.

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

The group doesn't seem particularly interested in exchanging words, instead they just keep shooting, screaming, and occasionally reloading.

"Where is that ****er?!" The gnoll of the party suddenly yells. "Find it! Now! Search the area, kill everything inside!" And then the group does the most common mistake of a horror movie, split up. They're going in three teams of two in each.

Kurrack might note that the strange black blight that he saw the boar infected with have been spreading across the crater. Whatever these KABAL people are doing, they're seem to be involved with it somehow.

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

The group doesn't seem particularly interested in exchanging words, instead they just keep shooting, screaming, and occasionally reloading.

"Where is that ****er?!" The gnoll of the party suddenly yells. "Find it! Now! Search the area, kill everything inside!" And then the group does the most common mistake of a horror movie, split up. They're going in three teams of two in each.

Kurrack might note that the strange black blight that he saw the boar infected with have been spreading across the crater. Whatever these KABAL people are doing, they're seem to be involved with it somehow.

"I always wanted to be a movie monster," Kurrack thinks, then starts to look at his undead friend acquaintance more closely. If she's fine, then Kurrack starts to stealthily make his way to the team that went the most Northward. If she doesn't look fine... well Kurrack still goes to the team that went the most Northward.

It occurs to Kurrack that the original purpose of his being here was to pilfer some sort of artifact for the strange benefactor he met at the lodge. Maybe these KABAL guys and the Strange Benefactor could be related. If so, Kurrack probably wouldn't care unless things started to get more personal towards himself. A greedy semi-avian is Kurrack after all.

[Green Elf]

[Hunting Camp]

Grumbling and scowling, Guinness gets to his feet and pulls out his ritual knife, holding it at the ready. Everything was going so well too. They had to go and ruin his perfectly enjoyable counting mood. "Massimo doesn't take kindly to attempted to double crosses." He'll move to kick open the new box to make sure it actually has anything inside. "Your call boss," Guinness says, looking to Aaron as to whether they should take the bonus payment and leave it at that or make the hunters into an example.

While still holding the hunters at gunpoint, Aaron calls into Headquarters on his headset. "Hey Boss, sorry to bother you but the guys tried to pay us in useless money. What should we do?" Aaron turns off the mic to his headset and says to the hunters "Don't think you can get out of this, if you even look like you're about to run, I'll put a .45 ACP round in your head."

The box contains identical gold pieces, but the color is slightly different. Jacob Rancor, their employer, sighs when he hears Aaron. "What a typical move." He pauses in disappointment of these hunters. "Well you found out, so I assume they offered the real thing out of fear. Take whatever they offered. Both offers. They could be future clients so keep them living another day."

[8BitNinja]

The box contains identical gold pieces, but the color is slightly different. Jacob Rancor, their employer, sighs when he hears Aaron. "What a typical move." He pauses in disappointment of these hunters. "Well you found out, so I assume they offered the real thing out of fear. Take whatever they offered. Both offers. They could be future clients so keep them living another day."

Aaron says "Understood" and holsters his weapon. "Alright, here's the deal, you can keep having a pulse if we take both boxes. What do you say?"

[Reinholdt]

Hunting Camp

"I say they don't have a choice in the matter." Guinness steps forward to collect both boxes as he puts away his knife. Granted, that was the original deal the hunters offered anyways, so he can't imagine there being any problems with it. It's certainly better than the alternatives.

[8BitNinja]

Hunting Camp

"I say they don't have a choice in the matter." Guinness steps forward to collect both boxes as he puts away his knife. Granted, that was the original deal the hunters offered anyways, so he can't imagine there being any problems with it. It's certainly better than the alternatives.

Aaron grabs one of the boxes and says "Let's get this back to base. I don't like to stay around places where I've caused disturbance."

[Shadowcaller]

"I always wanted to be a movie monster," Kurrack thinks, then starts to look at his undead friend acquaintance more closely. If she's fine, then Kurrack starts to stealthily make his way to the team that went the most Northward. If she doesn't look fine... well Kurrack still goes to the team that went the most Northward.

It occurs to Kurrack that the original purpose of his being here was to pilfer some sort of artifact for the strange benefactor he met at the lodge. Maybe these KABAL guys and the Strange Benefactor could be related. If so, Kurrack probably wouldn't care unless things started to get more personal towards himself. A greedy semi-avian is Kurrack after all.

[Mysterious Crater]

Minerva slowly gets up as Kurrack approaches, her white robes torn by the bullet fire, yet there is no blood at all. "That... could have gone better...." She mumbles. "But if these people speak only violence, I suppose we have to start talking their language." Her yellow orb-like eyes lit up with determination. "We have to take them out, I'm afraid."

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

They split up. That was stupid, we shouldn't do that. I say we go the ones that went the most south, then work our way upwards. says Kurrack.

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

They can hear sub-machine guns going off in the distance, but it doesn't sound like they're shooting at them. Far above, a number of those gigantic vultures lift their wings and fly away.
"Can we sneak up on them? They're going to call for help if they see us." Minerva whispers over the sound of the KABAL troops shouting to one another.

"FALSE ALARM! IT WAS JUST BIRDS!"

They're rather loud.

[Reinholdt]

Aaron grabs one of the boxes and says "Let's get this back to base. I don't like to stay around places where I've caused disturbance."

Guinness shrugs, fairly certain these hunters were already plenty disturbed. Taking the other box, he'll follow Aaron back for extraction and returning back to Massimo.

[8BitNinja]

Guinness shrugs, fairly certain these hunters were already plenty disturbed. Taking the other box, he'll follow Aaron back for extraction and returning back to Massimo.

Aaron loads the vehicle with the box and heads back to Massimo.

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

They can hear sub-machine guns going off in the distance, but it doesn't sound like they're shooting at them. Far above, a number of those gigantic vultures lift their wings and fly away.
"Can we sneak up on them? They're going to call for help if they see us." Minerva whispers over the sound of the KABAL troops shouting to one another.

"FALSE ALARM! IT WAS JUST BIRDS!"

They're rather loud.

I can get from tree to tree without stirring the nests, I'm more worried about how you'll sneak. Unless you have some sort of strange magical supernatural powers that undead nature chicks get access to, Kurrack says in a hushed tone.

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

"I am no druid, nor am I a 'chick'. My power comes from the light itself, child." She scolds like a teacher would. "Therefore, my duty is to heal and protect... and sometimes smite. But not hide, so I won't be of much help there." She pauses. "Though admittedly, I can move silently on my own power, if it is required."

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

"I am no druid, nor am I a 'chick'. My power comes from the light itself, child." She scolds like a teacher would. "Therefore, my duty is to heal and protect... and sometimes smite. But not hide, so I won't be of much help there." She pauses. "Though admittedly, I can move silently on my own power, if it is required."

Hey, your adjectives, your rules, Kurruck jests.

Light, you say? That gives me an idea. If you could create some sort of huge lightshow, I could lay down a few explosives, you draw them all here, I set of the charges, and then we take out the stragglers. Simple plan, not that much chance of failing, and these guys seem pretty stupid when it comes to tactics. So can you do it?

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

"'Lightshow'?" Minerva sounds skeptical to say at least but seems to at least consider it. "I... suppose I could do that. Seems like kind of a waste when we have them split up, but you are the war expert here, not me." She gestures at the ground. "So go ahead, I will be ready when you set your things up."

[Celticbear]

Mysterious Crater

As Kurrack sets up the explosives, he starts to quietly explain his reasoning: These guys seem too militarized to split up that easily.
They have an ace in hole, so to speak, and if we followed them the way they expect us to, they'll play it. This way, we fight on our own terms, and not the one our enemy set up, willingly or unwittingly. If they really are that stupid, then they probably won't expect this. I always used to tell my squad this whenever we had free time. Rule number one: never split up. Rule number two: expect the unexpected. Rule number three: Kurrack is always right. Rule number four: If you question any of the above rules, Kurrack will kill you in your sleep.

Kurrack then chuckles at fond memories. A few minutes of semi-silence, and Kurrack finally says: Kay, it's done. I'll be in that tree up yonder. You can start the lightshow whenever you want. Operation Thunder Strike Alpha Omega Eagle Jupiter is a f***ing go.

Kurrack then scurries up a tree, remote blast charges in his hand.

[Shadowcaller]

Mysterious Crater

((Whoops, I thought I had replied here. Sorry for the delay, been rather busy as of late.))

These words seem to do little to ease the priests fears, but she doesn't protest when Kurrack is finished presenting his idea at least. "Alright then. I guess I don't have any better suggestions. However, if anything goes wrong, I'm going to flee rather than being shot down by those maniacs again."

As he scurries up in one of the trees, she sits down on the ground, as if meditating. But then after just a few minutes a huge pillar of light envelops her, raising into air and even above the gigantic trees all the way up into the clouds.
It is so large that it probably can be seen from miles away, which makes it impossible to miss for the KABAL troop.

Soon enough they come running towards the pillar of light. But they're not all coming in one gathered troop however, one group arriving much sooner than the others.