RP Wildark

[ShoddyProduct]

The last several months for Vance had been spent in a cold, clinical lab, looking through microscopes and jotting down notes on a genetic sequence so alien to her own that it was nearly unrecognizable. It likely would have been if it weren't for the fact that she'd spent nearly a decade now waist deep in this research, endeavoring on behalf of the people of Wildark to find the truth of the situation they'd all been living in for generations now.

To her eye, and likely most of theirs, it was clear they weren't of where they were. The Wildark, their home, it didn't fit the land around it. Wild forests filled to the brim with dangerous, magical creatures juxtaposed with towering spires of metal and concrete and glass, crumbling beneath the weight of centuries, neglect, and the roots of the Citadel. None of them had seem anything else like it elsewhere, and while granted they hadn't traveled far, from all myth and legend, it was obvious they hadn't always been there.

It was that hypothesis, that train of thought paired with the unique differences that the people of Wildark even just shared between themselves, that had Vance trapped in the lab for four months. They'd come across a new creature, the name still pending, and as was standard, a sample was taken to her for sequencing and comparison. As always, the differences between theirs and the creatures were marked, but there wasn't enough to be conclusive. She'd tired of her time in the lab, and needed more samples, so she put in a request with the Expedition Corps to venture from Wildark in search of another specimen.

Which led her to now, thousands of feet in the air, the wings of the Expedition Corps standard "Hummingbird" ornithopter buzzing herself, the pilot, and a second corps member meant for security, out to the depths of the woods, where the initial specimen had been found. She had a pair of headphones over her ears, fighting for purchase against her horns, which curled around them to point just ever so slightly past her face forwards. The noise, a constant hum just loud enough to be heard, was nearly enough to put her to sleep. If not for the height, she might have dozed off during their trip.

Instead, she looked to the corpsman beside her, who she had not spoken to for the entirety of the journey so far, and asked a single deadpan question: "How much further?"

The answer came swiftly. At the rate they were going, they would arrive and land on site in the next five minutes. Vance, seemingly satisfied, nodded, adjusted her glasses, and looked back out over the forest below, fighting the ever present vertigo.

 

[annasiel]

"Almost there, Ma'am. Wind's at our backs at a good heading," the corps member replied. His voice was gruff and low - barely audible over the rush of air about their ears and the hum of the vehicle's engine. Up this high, the forest seemed to stretch on forever. A green expanse occasionally punctuated by a spiring mountaintop, crested ravine, or -

In more cases than one might think -

A spiraling trunk of enormous trees that extended up even to where the Hummingbird flew, canopies stretched out in a fan that shadowed the smaller cousins down below. It was cold, here, too, and damp, precipitation from wayward strands of cloud clinging desperately to any surface they could get their greedy little dew drops on.

The Hummingbird jolted, and began to dip. After a few seconds, it yawed to one side, turning from a straight dive into a gentle, sloping spiral that descended down towards a nearby clearing.

"Landing there," the corpsman conveyed. "Trees are too thick ahead. We'll go the rest of the way on foot."

Down, down, down, the carpet below opening around the clearing like a great maw, then swallowing the trio whole into the belly of the wilderness. After seeing things from above, it's disorienting, passing down below the canopy. The trees are still massive, many stories high, with trunks thick around that it'd take twenty - thirty - forty people hand in hand to circle around them.

It puts into perspective just how big the massive outlier trees must be.

The Hummingbird lighted on the grass, wings turning visible as they slowed, then stopping entirely. The corpsman who'd talked with Vance stepped off, slinging his gunlance from his back, while the other moved to check over the ornithopter.

"Lead the way," the first one said, nodding to Vance. "You got the coordinates?"

 

[ShoddyProduct]

A sense of vertigo took her as the Hummingbird tipped on its side, leaving her facing, in effect, straight down. One of her arms reached out for one of many handholds aboard the craft, her body straining against the straps that held her in place as their descent began in earnest.

Vance had always hated these things. Were it up to her, she would never ride in one again, and neither would anyone else. Unfortunately, though, on foot travel this far out was impractical, if not outright dangerous. The difficulty of the terrain and the distance aside, the things that lived out there, while mostly known, were no less dangerous. There was a reason the corpsman brough with him the signature weapon of the Expedition Corps, the gunlance.

Eventually, the craft reached the forest floor, finally prompting Dr. Arztmann to release her grip on the handrail, white-knuckled as it was, and instead direct her attention the buckles holding her in place.

I should have trimmed my nails...

A clawed fingernail picked at the buckle until it came undone, just as the corpsman spoke to her once more. Vance looked to the man with disinterest, bags under her eyes more pronounced than ever, before standing and reaching beneath the seat. "Of course I do," she said dismissively as she retrieved her things.

A case, metal, with her tools in it. Necessary to retrieve a sample, or perhaps even an entire specimen. She clicked it open, retrieving her projector from within, affixing it firmly to the back of her right hand, before closing it once more. The coordinates were secure in her mind, set there once the news of something new had reached her. Vance took the case in her left hand by the handle and, promptly, began walking towards her destination.

 

[annasiel]

The walk was, to put it mildly, unpleasant. If the damp chill and vertigo of flying here was trouble to deal with, the final trek through the jungle was doubly so. The ground beneath their feet was uncertain - in some spots, solid and firm, in others, spongy, and in others yet, muddy and sucking at any boot that dared press into it. While the weather today was mild, the air was permeated with a thick humidity that seemed to clog every breath and cling to the skin.

And the bugs -

Well. Bugs were everywhere, but here, they were everywhere. Tiny flies that divebombed into any face that passed. Spiders dangling unseen between behemoth trunks. Bright orange centipedes that scurried away as their shelters of peat and foliage were disturbed. The corpsman panted as they trudged onward, eyes darting to and fro, lance raised at the ready.

"Hate this place," he grumbled under his breath. "Can't understand what you people see in it."

 

[ShoddyProduct]

Compared to buzzing through the air in an open air transport, trudging through muck and underbrush was very preferable. The bugs were no bother to Vance either, with her skin being rougher and more durable than most, even having turned to scale coverage in some places, clearly marking her and her family going back for as long as she could remember. Perhaps it was where the pride came from, for her in her work, for others in themselves. Perhaps it was why she took offense to what her escort had to say about their situation, as well.

Without breaking stride or removing her slitted eyes from the treeline, Dr. Arztmann responded. "The understanding of our place in this world, and of our own history. The possible betterment of our way of life, and the security of Wildark. We found gunlances to be so effective because of field work like this," she said flatly, before finally taking a moment to look back at him through narrowed eyes. "If we could keep pointless chatter to a minimum, that would be ideal. The worst case scenario for all of us is if your inane complaining were to alert and scare of the specimen that we're here for." She then summarily turned on her heel, making way for the aforementioned coordinates.

 

[annasiel]

The man glowered, but he didn't say another word after, instead returning to scouring the surrounding jungle for any sign of danger.

It was slow going - roots taller than a person, muddy sinkholes, and foliage so thick it needed to be cut with a knife. Still, they eventually made it to the last known place of the specimen. It was mammalian and treeborne - at least, from the limited observations. The believed habitation areas were commonly marked with claws up and down the trees, and signs of forraging near the base of trunks where root patterns made comfortable living for smaller mammals and insects.

Easy pickings.

This particular site didn't seem to have any immediate signs of the creature - though, there were thin grooves in the bark of a nearby trunk, seemingly suggesting the presence of something clawed.

The corpsman leaned against another tree, arms folded, eyebrows raised.

"This is what you requisitioned expedition time for? Looks the same as the whole rest of the place."

 

[ShoddyProduct]

"Quiet."

Vance was already at the base of the tree, looking over the claw marks along its trunk. Evidence had been limited so far, as were the signs physically present at the current site, and so many creatures had claws (herself included, to an extent) that the chances of a false positive were quite high, given the ambiguous nature of the marks. She then dropped to a knee, sweeping her long coat out of the way as she began to inspect around the roots.

"You are a member of the expedition corps, the first of our number to have ever meaningfully left Wildark. Any maps that we have access to are sourced from your group. You do realize how discouraging it is that everything is, apparently, the same to you out here?"

All of this was said absentmindedly, over her shoulder as if she were stating a fun fact at a party, but with the tone of an admonishing professor. She had a reputation, among her colleagues and beyond, and it would be difficult to say that she hadn't been living up to it.

A quick inspection of the roots provided little, but she believed that there were signs of foraging. She looked to the corpsman. "Come here. You've more experience out here than I do. Does it look like something has been rummaging about? Here, among the tree roots." Her tone never changed.