fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Maybe by the time we get back we will find that they have changed the place into a 5 star hotel.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A couple of thoughts about the voting:
- I for one, and I suspect the other QMs as well, do not have tuits to intervene in the voting by compiling answers or whatnot. Keeping up with the thread is already taking much more time than I should be devoting; it is remarkably compelling.
- I'd suggest keeping your vote text as short and memorable as possible. People need to cut/paste it precisely in order for the voting tally bot to recognize it, so this:
_________
[X] "Plan hot pockets" is where we buy lots of hot pockets and put them in the toaster (which we'll need to build first of course) and then hook it up to a lightning jutsu at 60kHz and 110V
__________
...is not nearly as good as this:
__________
[X] "Plan hot pockets"
This is where we buy lots of hot pockets and put them in the toaster (which we'll need to build first of course) and then hook it up to a lightning jutsu at 60kHz and 110V
__________
- In my Copious Free Time I'm working on a new voting bot that will do instant runoff. I have very little CFT and I'm doing this as an exercise to learn a new programming language (Racket Scheme) so it will likely be a while before it's done.
- I for one, and I suspect the other QMs as well, do not have tuits to intervene in the voting by compiling answers or whatnot. Keeping up with the thread is already taking much more time than I should be devoting; it is remarkably compelling.
- I'd suggest keeping your vote text as short and memorable as possible. People need to cut/paste it precisely in order for the voting tally bot to recognize it, so this:
_________
[X] "Plan hot pockets" is where we buy lots of hot pockets and put them in the toaster (which we'll need to build first of course) and then hook it up to a lightning jutsu at 60kHz and 110V
__________
...is not nearly as good as this:
__________
[X] "Plan hot pockets"
This is where we buy lots of hot pockets and put them in the toaster (which we'll need to build first of course) and then hook it up to a lightning jutsu at 60kHz and 110V
__________
- In my Copious Free Time I'm working on a new voting bot that will do instant runoff. I have very little CFT and I'm doing this as an exercise to learn a new programming language (Racket Scheme) so it will likely be a while before it's done.
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
Ok, so for now it sounds like the best method of voting is to provide unique plan names (with the actual vote), and then description text below. People can vote for the plan, with the understanding that the specifics might change, but the general idea will remain the same.
On Phase 1 and Phase 2 ideas: this would likely result in better final plans, but would definitely reduce the number of people participating, so I think we don't want to pursue it. I think that proposing general plans is the best solution to this problem. For instance, I would have posted my plan as follows, instead as how I wrote it.
{} Plan Return with Full Report
This is where we drop unnecessary weight and head back to our village with the gator and other supplies. On the way back we consider implementing a plan for extra stealth, awareness, or defense. When we arrive we first double check that the village hasn't been invaded. We find Shikigami and provide a mission report starting with the structure we found, and proposing potential uses for materials we found during our mission.
Things to drop:
*Eel (it's not very useful and difficult to take)
Plans for travel safety:
*Do what we've been doing so far
Plans for proposals:
*list of things we can do with objects
Note: Plan specifics (anything past the first paragraph) are subject to change. I commit to editing this post on [time/date] to account for future discussion if necessary. In the event that I edit this, I will strike through elements we determine to be bad and add in bold new elements. I will also repost the whole plan (with strikethroughs and bolds) in the thread if the proposal is more than 50 posts behind current discussion.
From this, it should be obvious what my general plan is, and it could have been adjusted according to future discussion without deceiving voters. This isn't perfect (still has first mover problems, requires trust, people might only want to vote for static plans, requires extra work by plan proposers if they want to update their plans etc), but I doubt there's a solution which perfectly aggregates all our wills and ideas. If people are ok with this, then future plans I propose will have this general format.
On Phase 1 and Phase 2 ideas: this would likely result in better final plans, but would definitely reduce the number of people participating, so I think we don't want to pursue it. I think that proposing general plans is the best solution to this problem. For instance, I would have posted my plan as follows, instead as how I wrote it.
{} Plan Return with Full Report
This is where we drop unnecessary weight and head back to our village with the gator and other supplies. On the way back we consider implementing a plan for extra stealth, awareness, or defense. When we arrive we first double check that the village hasn't been invaded. We find Shikigami and provide a mission report starting with the structure we found, and proposing potential uses for materials we found during our mission.
Things to drop:
*Eel (it's not very useful and difficult to take)
Plans for travel safety:
*Do what we've been doing so far
Plans for proposals:
*list of things we can do with objects
Note: Plan specifics (anything past the first paragraph) are subject to change. I commit to editing this post on [time/date] to account for future discussion if necessary. In the event that I edit this, I will strike through elements we determine to be bad and add in bold new elements. I will also repost the whole plan (with strikethroughs and bolds) in the thread if the proposal is more than 50 posts behind current discussion.
From this, it should be obvious what my general plan is, and it could have been adjusted according to future discussion without deceiving voters. This isn't perfect (still has first mover problems, requires trust, people might only want to vote for static plans, requires extra work by plan proposers if they want to update their plans etc), but I doubt there's a solution which perfectly aggregates all our wills and ideas. If people are ok with this, then future plans I propose will have this general format.
Katsuragi
The 1%
If you're dealing with singular actions (/subset of actions) then voting plans work pretty well.
If you're voting on something like "pick 3 out of the following 8 to do over the next day" then it's best to vote freely and then count up the totals and pick the top 3 at the end.
If you're voting on something like "pick 3 out of the following 8 to do over the next day" then it's best to vote freely and then count up the totals and pick the top 3 at the end.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay, voting is closed.
Being as I live in Jobs-land, I am unable to run the voting tally program, but it looks pretty clear to me that people are overwhelmingly on the "Return and report" side. When ones of the Gatesers comes in I'll ask them to do the exact tally just for reference, but for now I'm going with that plan.
Being as I live in Jobs-land, I am unable to run the voting tally program, but it looks pretty clear to me that people are overwhelmingly on the "Return and report" side. When ones of the Gatesers comes in I'll ask them to do the exact tally just for reference, but for now I'm going with that plan.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And, thanks to the inimitable @Velorien:
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Investigate the shelter (?)
[X] Head back to base
No. of votes: 1
Velorien
[X] Plan Note and Return
[X] Use Vampire Dew as we retreat
No. of votes: 1
Icehawk78
[X] Plan Note and Return
-[X] don't try using vampire dew, just get back to camp
No. of votes: 1
MadScientist
[x] Plan Note and Return.
No. of votes: 5
fictionfan, Rafin, PetyrWiggin, Walkin' Man, WanderingAirhead
[X] Plan Return with Full Report
-[X] Note location of natural shelter on map
-[X] Have left the eel to travel to the village - it has minimal worth
-[X] At village, use time gained from dropping eel to observe first and verify village has not been wiped out while we were gone.
-[X] Provide Shikigami with a full report. Suggest the following uses for the materials we found.
-[X] Propose using the luminous green thing as a light for the cave
-[X] Propose placing dead spike fish near the entrance to the cave as an early warning system
-[X] Propose mechanical energy applications for spike fish
-[X] Propose giving poison snakes to our medical-nin in training and ask her to remove their poison and attempt to make antivenom, or preserve it to allow for future poisonings. Attempt to safely determine how poisonous it is.
-[X] Propose using Alligator skull as base for a shovel if we lack one.
-[X] Consult with Keiko before enacting plan to fix anything we missed.
No. of votes: 8
Radvic, will408914, Orisha91, dwibby, Traiden, Silver719, ProperAttorney, ChronOblivion
[X] Plan @Username
[X] Plan /permalink to post/
No. of votes: 1
Pahan
[X] plan username' and your vote is added.
No. of votes: 1
transfuturist
[X] Plan Return with Full Report
-[X] Note location of natural shelter on map
-[X] Have left the eel to travel to the village - it has minimal worth
-[X] At village, use time gained from dropping eel to observe first and verify village has not been wiped out while we were gone.
-[X] Provide Shikigami with a full report. Suggest the following uses for the materials we found.
-[X] Propose using the luminous green thing as a light for the cave
-[X] Propose placing dead spike fish near the entrance to the cave as an early warning system
-[X] Propose mechanical energy applications for spike fish
-[X] Propose giving poison snakes to our medical-nin in training and ask her to remove their poison and attempt to make antivenom, or preserve it to allow for future poisonings. Attempt to safely determine how poisonous it is.
-[X] Propose using Alligator skull as base for a shovel if we lack one.
-[X] Consult with Keiko before enacting plan to fix anything we missed.
-[X] Porpoise food preservation options:
--[x] Ice-Room
--[x] Searing
--[x] Smoking
--[x] Dehydration
--[x] Chakra Pasteurization
--[x] Salting
No. of votes: 1
Jello_Raptor
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Investigate the shelter (?)
[X] Head back to base
No. of votes: 1
Velorien
[X] Plan Note and Return
[X] Use Vampire Dew as we retreat
No. of votes: 1
Icehawk78
[X] Plan Note and Return
-[X] don't try using vampire dew, just get back to camp
No. of votes: 1
MadScientist
[x] Plan Note and Return.
No. of votes: 5
fictionfan, Rafin, PetyrWiggin, Walkin' Man, WanderingAirhead
[X] Plan Return with Full Report
-[X] Note location of natural shelter on map
-[X] Have left the eel to travel to the village - it has minimal worth
-[X] At village, use time gained from dropping eel to observe first and verify village has not been wiped out while we were gone.
-[X] Provide Shikigami with a full report. Suggest the following uses for the materials we found.
-[X] Propose using the luminous green thing as a light for the cave
-[X] Propose placing dead spike fish near the entrance to the cave as an early warning system
-[X] Propose mechanical energy applications for spike fish
-[X] Propose giving poison snakes to our medical-nin in training and ask her to remove their poison and attempt to make antivenom, or preserve it to allow for future poisonings. Attempt to safely determine how poisonous it is.
-[X] Propose using Alligator skull as base for a shovel if we lack one.
-[X] Consult with Keiko before enacting plan to fix anything we missed.
No. of votes: 8
Radvic, will408914, Orisha91, dwibby, Traiden, Silver719, ProperAttorney, ChronOblivion
[X] Plan @Username
[X] Plan /permalink to post/
No. of votes: 1
Pahan
[X] plan username' and your vote is added.
No. of votes: 1
transfuturist
[X] Plan Return with Full Report
-[X] Note location of natural shelter on map
-[X] Have left the eel to travel to the village - it has minimal worth
-[X] At village, use time gained from dropping eel to observe first and verify village has not been wiped out while we were gone.
-[X] Provide Shikigami with a full report. Suggest the following uses for the materials we found.
-[X] Propose using the luminous green thing as a light for the cave
-[X] Propose placing dead spike fish near the entrance to the cave as an early warning system
-[X] Propose mechanical energy applications for spike fish
-[X] Propose giving poison snakes to our medical-nin in training and ask her to remove their poison and attempt to make antivenom, or preserve it to allow for future poisonings. Attempt to safely determine how poisonous it is.
-[X] Propose using Alligator skull as base for a shovel if we lack one.
-[X] Consult with Keiko before enacting plan to fix anything we missed.
-[X] Porpoise food preservation options:
--[x] Ice-Room
--[x] Searing
--[x] Smoking
--[x] Dehydration
--[x] Chakra Pasteurization
--[x] Salting
No. of votes: 1
Jello_Raptor
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
It tallied those because in your post listing the options, you marked the options as [X] rather than an empty [ ]
- Location
- USA
... I thought it had to be on a new line to count as a vote.
@eaglejarl, you can run the tkinter version of the vote tally program in Wine; it works on Ubuntu at least.
@eaglejarl, you can run the tkinter version of the vote tally program in Wine; it works on Ubuntu at least.
- Location
- ✳
Just as a reminder. You can take a proposed plan and modify it like this:
If you want the vote tally programs to correctly handle such modifications, kindly take care not to intersperse them with other text. For example:
If you want the vote tally programs to correctly handle such modifications, kindly take care not to intersperse them with other text. For example:
I've not been able to make the NetTally correctly parse this as a modification of Plan Return with Full Report. However, if you move out the "With food preservation additions:" line outside of the vote lines, it should work.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not super important since I'll never be voting, but I didn't quite get the part about modifications and someone else might also be confused. How would the tally program understand the following?
[X] Plan: Return to Base
- subitem #1 of plan: RTB
- subitem #2 of plan: RTB
-- BAR (what is this?)
[X] Plan: What to Report
- there's a swamp
- It's really nasty
- Hey look! Food!
EDIT: 'BAR' is a sub-subitem. The dashes simply construct a hierarchy of items. Apparently, a long as the plan name (e.g. "Plan: Return to Base") is identical, the votes will all be counted towards the same total even if the hierarchies are different.
@AugShpere, please confirm that last bit.
[X] Plan: Return to Base
- subitem #1 of plan: RTB
- subitem #2 of plan: RTB
-- BAR (what is this?)
[X] Plan: What to Report
- there's a swamp
- It's really nasty
- Hey look! Food!
EDIT: 'BAR' is a sub-subitem. The dashes simply construct a hierarchy of items. Apparently, a long as the plan name (e.g. "Plan: Return to Base") is identical, the votes will all be counted towards the same total even if the hierarchies are different.
@AugShpere, please confirm that last bit.
Last edited:
- Location
- ✳
It depends on how we choose to count the votes. If we decide to count the individual lines (options like "there's a swamp") separately, then the program will count the vote for a plan towards each sub-item in the plan (as long as formatting is correct all-around). There are situations, in which counting the number of votes for each line makes more sense than counting the plans as a whole.
Chapter 3: Nightfall
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[Reminder: Your teammate Noburi's last name is Wakahisa. Your teammate Keiko's last name is Mori.]
Walking in a swamp is hard.
Walking in a swamp where everything wants to eat you is very hard.
Walking in a swamp where everything wants to eat you while carrying a 5-meter-long, 600 kg alligator corpse that tends to tip over with almost vindictive frequency… well, that was the sort of thing where everyone could agree you were having a bad day and you deserved a cookie and a bit of a lie-in.
The whole experience was a misery. There were bugs the size of kunai—well, not literally, but it seemed like it—buzzing everywhere, and they all seemed to think that lightly-poached-by-the-sun genin was a tasty treat.
Hazō cursed and swatted at the latest flying monstrosity that had just delivered a stinging bite on the back of his neck. The motion destabilized his grip on the alligator and the thing promptly twisted out of his hands, sending all three genin into the muck.
Aside from Hazō's muffled "Sorry", none of them said anything as they got themselves straightened up again, the swamp water brushed out of their eyes, and the alligator hoisted overhead. None of them had the energy; they'd been burning chakra to deadlift more than their combined body weight worth of dead meat and carry it overhead. They stopped every twenty minutes to refill their chakra reserves by drinking from Wakahisa's cask. During the rest breaks they would work their fingers to shake out the cramps, and wipe the mud out of the blisters they were getting from where the 'gator's rough, scaly hide had been slowly sanding away their skin.
They'd tried floating the corpse and pushing it along like a raft, but that hadn't worked well; it didn't float evenly, so it tended to roll lazily over while yawing to the side. On top of that there were enough shallow spots, reeds, and snags that it had become easier just to carry the damn thing overhead.
They'd noted the location of the strange maybe-a-shelter-maybe-not on their map but headed home without investigating. Hazō was carrying the head of the gator, Mori was on the tail, and Noburi was in the middle. Each had their own threat axis to watch: Hazō was responsible for the 180-degree forward arc, Mori had right and rear, Wakahisa had left and rear. Both of the other two genin had stabbed kunai into the gator corpse and used ninja-wire to fasten their signal mirrors to them so they could see behind themselves without turning around. Under the circumstances it was the best they could do, but none of them were terribly sanguine about their ability to spot attacks from behind. Wakahisa had volunteered to maintain a continuous, low-level chakra drain so as to be aware of nearby sources. Mori and Hazō thought it was more than worth having their chakra slowly leeched away in order to get even a moment's extra warning.
This area of the swamp was "hilly", the underwater topography varying a great deal. There were strips of ground where the water was only ankle deep, but one step to the side the bottom was ten feet down. Generally, the high ground had reeds or grasses growing on it, and there would be a mat of rotting vegetation alongside it. Of course, then there were the reeds, grasses, and mats that took up station out in the middle of a random patch of deep bog just so they could trick people. That didn't make finding the high ground any easier. Mori had pointed out, in a voice that was already exhausted, that the reeds were hollow and the dead-and-dried-out ones would make excellent tinder, as they stayed upright and really did dry. The two boys had nodded, not wasting the energy to talk, collected a few stalks as samples, and shuffled on past.
They had found a very high ridge that ran in the direction they wanted to go, and had eagerly scrambled up atop it. With the water barely over the toes of their shoes, they were making excellent time when Hazō...
...saw the mat of dead reeds in the water beside them shift in his peripheral vision.
They'd seen similar things throughout the day. A fly would land on the surface, causing ripples. An amphibian would blink and twist its head. Small motions, not of any particular significance. To his dying day, Hazō would never know why exactly he knew this one was different, but he found himself instinctively throwing himself backwards, sending all three genin tipping off the high ground to the left, into the water on the side opposite where the monstrosity was rearing up.
It was eight feet long, massive—blubber and muscle both—and covered in fur so matted and caked in mud that it became ersatz armor. It moved too fast for Hazō to consciously sort out what he was seeing; there was no time for processing or thinking, just for smooth and carefully-drilled action, the power of his family's blood singing through him as the world became slow and smooth, his awareness expanding to integrate everything around him, imaginary lines drawing themselves through space to define a series of form-fitting tunnels down which his body could be propelled. The fight played out in his head in a series of flashes:
Hazō blinked and the world came back. As always, it seemed faded and bland after the thrumming speed and power of chakra boost. The bear...spider...spiderbear…thing was collapsed in the water under him, all eight legs twitching furiously but uselessly; Hazō's kunai strike had severed the spinal cord and cut off all contact between the primary brain and the limbs. Apparently there were sufficient reflex centers to maintain some movement, but nothing like enough to be a threat.
Just to be sure, he stabbed his kunai into its brain a few times, then into the shoulder joints, then into the brain a few more times. The skull was so thick that the tip of his kunai chipped off, but he kept punching it in again and again until the skull was in fragments, the brain had splashed, and the legs were not moving at all.
The spiderbear's Lightning Element attack had been powerful enough that, had Hazō been in the water when the attack hit near him, he probably would have died on the spot. Fortunately, Noburi and Keiko had been far enough away that they'd only been stunned. Hazō helped them climb back up onto the high ground and the three of them surveyed the kill.
"What does it eat?" Mori asked.
"Us, it thought," Hazō said.
She rolled her eyes. "Normally, I mean. A predator this size must need an incredible number of calories to maintain the speed it displayed. Clearly, it is an ambush predator, which will save it considerable energy, but the question still stands."
"Does it matter?" Hazō asked. "It's dead."
"Yes," Mori said. "But there is a piece missing here. We have seen too many apex predators and not enough game for them to feed on. There may be considerably more fish than we saw, but evolution equipped this monster to take down large prey, not the occasional watersnake. One explanation would be that there is something deeper in the swamp that has recently arrived and is dangerous enough that it has been driving apex predators out of their normal hunting ranges."
Hazō didn't say anything and carefully kept his eyes on the body he'd killed. When he'd poured chakra through himself, spending it profligately in the face of an otherwise-overwhelming foe, he had briefly been a god. Now, he was back in his mortal body again, and facing the letdown that came with that. It was so small, so slow, being merely human. He'd needed to be more to deal with the spiderbear, and still the battle hadn't been as easy as it must have looked from the outside. The creature had been so fast; a little more speed on its part, a little more clumsiness on Hazō's, and it would have been him lying there in the water, his brain spread out over ten square feet. And now there was something worse?
He sighed. Well, that was what a team was for; this time, he'd been fast enough to cover for them. The next time, when "worse" showed up, they'd cover for him, or the three of them would take it on together.
Mori waited for him to respond; when he didn't she started fidgeting. "It...might be something else, of course," she finally said. "That was only the first thought that came to mind. There are other possibilities. It could be that—"
Hazō waved her to silence. "Let's talk about it back at base," he said. He paused for a moment, then turned back. "Noburi, I need some water, please; I had to burn chakra to take that thing down."
See? Covering each other's weaknesses. They could do this.
It was just coming into sight, twisting sinuously back and forth at the surface of the water; he couldn't see the far end of it, but there must have been at least twenty meters of its bright red, shiny body in sight already. It was wiggling sidewinder-style across the surface towards them at a human's slow walking speed. Without even thinking he pulled out a kunai, clipped it to a coil of ninja wire, and hurled it unerringly at the snake, severing it just behind the head...at which point the "snake" dissolved into a swarm of millipedes the size of Hazō's pinky. They'd been traveling in a nose-to-tail chain, and when the kunai severed that chain the millipedes burst apart and shifted gears from "gentle mosey" to "pants-wettingly fast charge".
At Hazō's yell, Wakahisa and Mori grabbed their non-waterwalking teammate under the arms and leaped up onto the surface of the water, putting a dozen yards between themselves and the insectile horde. Fortunately, the bugs weren't interested in the genin; they swarmed up onto the alligator corpse and started feasting. It was an eerily coordinated pavane; an insect would jam its pincer-equipped head into one of the wounds made by the genin's weapons, tear a gobbet of flesh out, and then step aside to let the next one have a turn.
The former Mist-nin watched the disgusting yet oddly hypnotic process for a full minute before Mori observed, "We should probably put a stop to that."
"Yeah," said Hazō. Pause. "Any idea how? I'm not going over there."
In practice it turned out to be simple. Tedious and time-consuming, but simple. Wakahisa manifested his Water Whip and used it to crush the bugs. It would have been unworkably slow but for two things: the bugs liked to cluster together, and they couldn't breathe water. They had a natural water-walking ability, but sufficient impact would disrupt it and push them under, at which point they would drown in under a minute. Wakahisa must have killed hundreds of the creatures, but the majority of them just left. The bugs simply had enough to eat, connected with some other bugs, and went off in another long, twisting "snake."
By the time the creatures had left and the genin had carefully inspected the corpse to make sure there were no millipedes inside it having an after-dinner snack, forty minutes had passed and the sun was stumbling heavy-footed towards the horizon like an exhausted laborer heading home for the night.
"On the bright side, the corpse is lighter now," Wakahisa said, clearly forcing himself to sound cheerful. It was true; the millipedes had eaten easily two hundred pounds of meat before departing.
"Unfortunately, we lost forty minutes," Mori said. "We are not going to get back before dark if we carry the alligator."
Mori and Wakahisa both turned and looked expectantly at Hazō.
Inwardly, Hazō cursed. Leadership was a mixed bag; the authority was nice, but having to make decisions that could get them all killed was stressful.
Time to vote!
Vote #1, what to do in story?:
-[] Dump the gator and run back to base, hopefully beating the sunset?
-[] Keep the gator and go as fast as you can, knowing that you'll be in the dark for at least half an hour before you get there?
-[] Something else?
Voting closes Wednesday, 2015 December 23, at 12pm UTC. Velorien is writing the next post.
Vote #2, what to do out of story?:
In this post, I had Hazō burn some chakra to fight the spiderbear. On the one hand, GMs shouldn't blithely burn up player resources. On the other, y'all needed the boost, I was confident you would have voted for it, and it didn't actually damage your resources because Gatorade-guy was there. Also, it let me fit in a Watsonian description of chakra usage. So:
-[] OY! GMs! Keep yer grubby mitts off our stuff!
-[] Hey, you guys feel absolutely free to use our stuff as long as you're nice about it!
Keep in mind that we won't do it every time, so you should really make a policy for this.
EDIT: Congratulations on your shiny new 15 XP!
Walking in a swamp is hard.
Walking in a swamp where everything wants to eat you is very hard.
Walking in a swamp where everything wants to eat you while carrying a 5-meter-long, 600 kg alligator corpse that tends to tip over with almost vindictive frequency… well, that was the sort of thing where everyone could agree you were having a bad day and you deserved a cookie and a bit of a lie-in.
The whole experience was a misery. There were bugs the size of kunai—well, not literally, but it seemed like it—buzzing everywhere, and they all seemed to think that lightly-poached-by-the-sun genin was a tasty treat.
Hazō cursed and swatted at the latest flying monstrosity that had just delivered a stinging bite on the back of his neck. The motion destabilized his grip on the alligator and the thing promptly twisted out of his hands, sending all three genin into the muck.
Aside from Hazō's muffled "Sorry", none of them said anything as they got themselves straightened up again, the swamp water brushed out of their eyes, and the alligator hoisted overhead. None of them had the energy; they'd been burning chakra to deadlift more than their combined body weight worth of dead meat and carry it overhead. They stopped every twenty minutes to refill their chakra reserves by drinking from Wakahisa's cask. During the rest breaks they would work their fingers to shake out the cramps, and wipe the mud out of the blisters they were getting from where the 'gator's rough, scaly hide had been slowly sanding away their skin.
They'd tried floating the corpse and pushing it along like a raft, but that hadn't worked well; it didn't float evenly, so it tended to roll lazily over while yawing to the side. On top of that there were enough shallow spots, reeds, and snags that it had become easier just to carry the damn thing overhead.
They'd noted the location of the strange maybe-a-shelter-maybe-not on their map but headed home without investigating. Hazō was carrying the head of the gator, Mori was on the tail, and Noburi was in the middle. Each had their own threat axis to watch: Hazō was responsible for the 180-degree forward arc, Mori had right and rear, Wakahisa had left and rear. Both of the other two genin had stabbed kunai into the gator corpse and used ninja-wire to fasten their signal mirrors to them so they could see behind themselves without turning around. Under the circumstances it was the best they could do, but none of them were terribly sanguine about their ability to spot attacks from behind. Wakahisa had volunteered to maintain a continuous, low-level chakra drain so as to be aware of nearby sources. Mori and Hazō thought it was more than worth having their chakra slowly leeched away in order to get even a moment's extra warning.
This area of the swamp was "hilly", the underwater topography varying a great deal. There were strips of ground where the water was only ankle deep, but one step to the side the bottom was ten feet down. Generally, the high ground had reeds or grasses growing on it, and there would be a mat of rotting vegetation alongside it. Of course, then there were the reeds, grasses, and mats that took up station out in the middle of a random patch of deep bog just so they could trick people. That didn't make finding the high ground any easier. Mori had pointed out, in a voice that was already exhausted, that the reeds were hollow and the dead-and-dried-out ones would make excellent tinder, as they stayed upright and really did dry. The two boys had nodded, not wasting the energy to talk, collected a few stalks as samples, and shuffled on past.
They had found a very high ridge that ran in the direction they wanted to go, and had eagerly scrambled up atop it. With the water barely over the toes of their shoes, they were making excellent time when Hazō...
"Rolz.org" said:
...saw the mat of dead reeds in the water beside them shift in his peripheral vision.
They'd seen similar things throughout the day. A fly would land on the surface, causing ripples. An amphibian would blink and twist its head. Small motions, not of any particular significance. To his dying day, Hazō would never know why exactly he knew this one was different, but he found himself instinctively throwing himself backwards, sending all three genin tipping off the high ground to the left, into the water on the side opposite where the monstrosity was rearing up.
It was eight feet long, massive—blubber and muscle both—and covered in fur so matted and caked in mud that it became ersatz armor. It moved too fast for Hazō to consciously sort out what he was seeing; there was no time for processing or thinking, just for smooth and carefully-drilled action, the power of his family's blood singing through him as the world became slow and smooth, his awareness expanding to integrate everything around him, imaginary lines drawing themselves through space to define a series of form-fitting tunnels down which his body could be propelled. The fight played out in his head in a series of flashes:
"Rolz.org" said:
- Enemy's speed too great; activate boost; lightning/fire surging in veins, body burning with speed/power; enemy assaulting team—KILL!
- Disemboweling strike inbound from enemy's left-second leg; leap backwards, spilling gator and team into water but avoiding strike
- Chest-deep water is suboptimal combat environment. Pull-up back onto high ground, roll to feet
- Ranged attack from mouthparts—sticky rope??; sway to side
- Hurl kunai? No, enemy too fast, chelicerae too heavily armored. Must close
- Crouch/pivot around overhead strike from right-front leg
- Peripheral awareness: spark of light on enemy's forepaw; jump before paw lands; yes, discharge flash indicates Lightning Element shock delivered through water
- Note cries of teammates for later
- Drive kunai into enemy ankle joint to incapacitate leg. Maintain grip, allow self to be carried forward as leg withdraws
- Strike incoming from right; kip up, twist
- Strike incoming from left; release grip on kunai, drop
- Cat-twist / pike to land three-point on enemy's back
- Strike!
Hazō blinked and the world came back. As always, it seemed faded and bland after the thrumming speed and power of chakra boost. The bear...spider...spiderbear…thing was collapsed in the water under him, all eight legs twitching furiously but uselessly; Hazō's kunai strike had severed the spinal cord and cut off all contact between the primary brain and the limbs. Apparently there were sufficient reflex centers to maintain some movement, but nothing like enough to be a threat.
Just to be sure, he stabbed his kunai into its brain a few times, then into the shoulder joints, then into the brain a few more times. The skull was so thick that the tip of his kunai chipped off, but he kept punching it in again and again until the skull was in fragments, the brain had splashed, and the legs were not moving at all.
The spiderbear's Lightning Element attack had been powerful enough that, had Hazō been in the water when the attack hit near him, he probably would have died on the spot. Fortunately, Noburi and Keiko had been far enough away that they'd only been stunned. Hazō helped them climb back up onto the high ground and the three of them surveyed the kill.
"What does it eat?" Mori asked.
"Us, it thought," Hazō said.
She rolled her eyes. "Normally, I mean. A predator this size must need an incredible number of calories to maintain the speed it displayed. Clearly, it is an ambush predator, which will save it considerable energy, but the question still stands."
"Does it matter?" Hazō asked. "It's dead."
"Yes," Mori said. "But there is a piece missing here. We have seen too many apex predators and not enough game for them to feed on. There may be considerably more fish than we saw, but evolution equipped this monster to take down large prey, not the occasional watersnake. One explanation would be that there is something deeper in the swamp that has recently arrived and is dangerous enough that it has been driving apex predators out of their normal hunting ranges."
Hazō didn't say anything and carefully kept his eyes on the body he'd killed. When he'd poured chakra through himself, spending it profligately in the face of an otherwise-overwhelming foe, he had briefly been a god. Now, he was back in his mortal body again, and facing the letdown that came with that. It was so small, so slow, being merely human. He'd needed to be more to deal with the spiderbear, and still the battle hadn't been as easy as it must have looked from the outside. The creature had been so fast; a little more speed on its part, a little more clumsiness on Hazō's, and it would have been him lying there in the water, his brain spread out over ten square feet. And now there was something worse?
He sighed. Well, that was what a team was for; this time, he'd been fast enough to cover for them. The next time, when "worse" showed up, they'd cover for him, or the three of them would take it on together.
Mori waited for him to respond; when he didn't she started fidgeting. "It...might be something else, of course," she finally said. "That was only the first thought that came to mind. There are other possibilities. It could be that—"
Hazō waved her to silence. "Let's talk about it back at base," he said. He paused for a moment, then turned back. "Noburi, I need some water, please; I had to burn chakra to take that thing down."
See? Covering each other's weaknesses. They could do this.
o-o-o-o
An hour after they left the site of their battle, the team was slogging through thigh-deep mud with the gator held above their heads. Hazō stumbled on a root but caught himself; he was about to warn his companions about its presence when he noticed the snake up ahead.
It was just coming into sight, twisting sinuously back and forth at the surface of the water; he couldn't see the far end of it, but there must have been at least twenty meters of its bright red, shiny body in sight already. It was wiggling sidewinder-style across the surface towards them at a human's slow walking speed. Without even thinking he pulled out a kunai, clipped it to a coil of ninja wire, and hurled it unerringly at the snake, severing it just behind the head...at which point the "snake" dissolved into a swarm of millipedes the size of Hazō's pinky. They'd been traveling in a nose-to-tail chain, and when the kunai severed that chain the millipedes burst apart and shifted gears from "gentle mosey" to "pants-wettingly fast charge".
At Hazō's yell, Wakahisa and Mori grabbed their non-waterwalking teammate under the arms and leaped up onto the surface of the water, putting a dozen yards between themselves and the insectile horde. Fortunately, the bugs weren't interested in the genin; they swarmed up onto the alligator corpse and started feasting. It was an eerily coordinated pavane; an insect would jam its pincer-equipped head into one of the wounds made by the genin's weapons, tear a gobbet of flesh out, and then step aside to let the next one have a turn.
The former Mist-nin watched the disgusting yet oddly hypnotic process for a full minute before Mori observed, "We should probably put a stop to that."
"Yeah," said Hazō. Pause. "Any idea how? I'm not going over there."
In practice it turned out to be simple. Tedious and time-consuming, but simple. Wakahisa manifested his Water Whip and used it to crush the bugs. It would have been unworkably slow but for two things: the bugs liked to cluster together, and they couldn't breathe water. They had a natural water-walking ability, but sufficient impact would disrupt it and push them under, at which point they would drown in under a minute. Wakahisa must have killed hundreds of the creatures, but the majority of them just left. The bugs simply had enough to eat, connected with some other bugs, and went off in another long, twisting "snake."
By the time the creatures had left and the genin had carefully inspected the corpse to make sure there were no millipedes inside it having an after-dinner snack, forty minutes had passed and the sun was stumbling heavy-footed towards the horizon like an exhausted laborer heading home for the night.
"On the bright side, the corpse is lighter now," Wakahisa said, clearly forcing himself to sound cheerful. It was true; the millipedes had eaten easily two hundred pounds of meat before departing.
"Unfortunately, we lost forty minutes," Mori said. "We are not going to get back before dark if we carry the alligator."
Mori and Wakahisa both turned and looked expectantly at Hazō.
Inwardly, Hazō cursed. Leadership was a mixed bag; the authority was nice, but having to make decisions that could get them all killed was stressful.
Time to vote!
Vote #1, what to do in story?:
-[] Dump the gator and run back to base, hopefully beating the sunset?
-[] Keep the gator and go as fast as you can, knowing that you'll be in the dark for at least half an hour before you get there?
-[] Something else?
Voting closes Wednesday, 2015 December 23, at 12pm UTC. Velorien is writing the next post.
Vote #2, what to do out of story?:
In this post, I had Hazō burn some chakra to fight the spiderbear. On the one hand, GMs shouldn't blithely burn up player resources. On the other, y'all needed the boost, I was confident you would have voted for it, and it didn't actually damage your resources because Gatorade-guy was there. Also, it let me fit in a Watsonian description of chakra usage. So:
-[] OY! GMs! Keep yer grubby mitts off our stuff!
-[] Hey, you guys feel absolutely free to use our stuff as long as you're nice about it!
Keep in mind that we won't do it every time, so you should really make a policy for this.
EDIT: Congratulations on your shiny new 15 XP!
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Questions for QMs and for discussion:
- How long would it take us to field-dress the gator and/or remove the bits less likely to be edible? That could reduce the weight by a pretty good percentage.
- Do we have relevant skills (as a part of general survival knowledge), and if not, can we substitute general understanding of anatomy (since we're trained killers)?
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
-[X] Hey, you guys feel absolutely free to use our stuff as long as you're nice about it!
This way, if we die from lack of resources or something, we can blame you!
As for Hazou & co.:
Rooster is right, but I can't help but want to be greedy anyways. What do you guys think about sending one person ahead while the other two guard the 'gator? Find some idle hands to bring it back the rest of the way.
Alternatively we could be safe, carve it up and bring back some choice morsels.
Oh! Could we carve off some of the heavier bits and make it light enough to carry it back in time? Off with the head, gut it and rip out some inedible organs, maybe cut off it's feet too.
This way, if we die from lack of resources or something, we can blame you!
As for Hazou & co.:
Rooster is right, but I can't help but want to be greedy anyways. What do you guys think about sending one person ahead while the other two guard the 'gator? Find some idle hands to bring it back the rest of the way.
Alternatively we could be safe, carve it up and bring back some choice morsels.
Oh! Could we carve off some of the heavier bits and make it light enough to carry it back in time? Off with the head, gut it and rip out some inedible organs, maybe cut off it's feet too.
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Yeah, that's what field-dressing is.
Never Split the Party.
But seriously, in that spiderbear fight, we got lucky --- literally. Hazou had a 25% chance of noticing it, and then a 50-50 chance of losing the battle. (Though, presumably, our teammates would have helped had we lost either roll, it's not clear what it would have cost us.)
Also, our speed without the gator is about twice the speed with (since, according to QMs, we double our travel time by lugging it), so if two of the team stay with the gator, they won't be back until after dark even if the jounin send out a rescue mission.
On the other hand, "before dark" or "after dark" is a false dichotomy. Better to ask "how long after dark": unless some creature is stalking us just waiting for it to get dark enough to attack, then, assuming threats arrive by a Poisson process, the expected extra danger during 30 minutes of dark is about half that of 1 hour of dark, etc..
- Location
- not here
Field-dressing does seem like a sound idea. I don't really know how much of the body-mass of the gator would go to internal organs and skeleton, but carrying several smaller fragments should be much easier and faster than the whole thing. If nothing else, each of the genin preserves individual freedom of movement.
Other than that, it would be possible to use the meat as sacrificial cover. If another predator emerges, that would be difficult to fight, just toss the meat at it, and run. Chances are, it will be more interested in the easy nutrition, than following fast-fleeing pray.
Thus the plan proposition:
[X] Field-dress, and take the gator to camp.
- [X] If necessary sarifice part/all of the meat to escape from danger.
Other than that, it would be possible to use the meat as sacrificial cover. If another predator emerges, that would be difficult to fight, just toss the meat at it, and run. Chances are, it will be more interested in the easy nutrition, than following fast-fleeing pray.
Thus the plan proposition:
[X] Field-dress, and take the gator to camp.
- [X] If necessary sarifice part/all of the meat to escape from danger.
One more remark before I go to bed: Keiko could be making an unwarranted assumption or misspeaking here: we've seen a pretty good number of gators, so they might not be apex predators themselves, if spiderbears eat them.
Before we vote on this, we should probably get an estimate of how long field-dressing the gator would take.
- Location
- USA
Could we maintain a clone and send it beyond out line of sight back to camp ahead of us while still bringing the gator back? I do not fully know the limitations of the academy clone vs $material clone and the things you might be able to do with them. If we could do this, it would be a way of sending a message back to camp to get some help bringing back the kill/ send someone to investigate the tree to see if it was a trap set by swamp creature or ninja.
Field dressing the gator would get us some amount of meat and maybe a bit of the skin to make into leather, though it might be best to hang what is left of the gator and spiderbear from a tree to keep it out of easy reach of the scavengers of the swamp and rush home and back with more hands to get what is left of the remains. It is to bad we do not have a tarp to bag up the remains too, to help make them last against what might try and eat what is left.
-[X] Hey, you guys feel absolutely free to use our stuff as long as you're nice about it!
I trust our QMs with the drivers seat of our character, we are mostly acting as a very strange decision making process for our viewpoint character.
Field dressing the gator would get us some amount of meat and maybe a bit of the skin to make into leather, though it might be best to hang what is left of the gator and spiderbear from a tree to keep it out of easy reach of the scavengers of the swamp and rush home and back with more hands to get what is left of the remains. It is to bad we do not have a tarp to bag up the remains too, to help make them last against what might try and eat what is left.
-[X] Hey, you guys feel absolutely free to use our stuff as long as you're nice about it!
I trust our QMs with the drivers seat of our character, we are mostly acting as a very strange decision making process for our viewpoint character.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Your characters have no experience with field-dressing animals (genin don't get sent on missions that require them to live off the land), and you have no one with the Medicine skill (which wouldn't be a great fit, but would at least give you some sort of roll). You do have numbers, well-made cutting tools and proficiency therewith going for you, but when you're dealing with a huge, very tough creature of unfamiliar anatomy...
You estimate a minimum of an hour (of daylight), but that's little more than a blind guess.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Didn't see your post, my bad.
Extra large text, huh?
I know splitting the party is usually such a bad idea that it's become cliché, but occasionally it really can be the most efficient choice. I was just tossing ideas out anyways, clearly that one isn't a winner.