EVENT #04: SEA MONSTER HUNT AND FEASTING

[vivalamods]

EVENT #04: THE GREAT SEA HUNT

With sharpened blades and loaded rifles, the Corsairs fan out across the Eternal Ocean. The Great Sea Hunt has begun once again. As the seas froth angrily from the horde of sea monsters, Corsair ships cut a path through. As the din of battle erupts across the Ocean, the Vault is undergoing heavy activity as other Corsairs begin preparing their grand feast.With the defeat of an Imperial Legion in their belts, all Corsairs are eager to make this hunt and this feast one to remember.

There will be open logs for each major category, as well as a wild card option for players to make their own. While these logs are roughly broken into roles, characters are free to tag in and out of whichever posts suit their fancy. The missions from planning and descriptions are repeated here for convenience:

MISSIONS

Monster Investigation: Characters will investigate where sea monsters are gathering for easier and more efficient culling.
Open to: Infiltrators
Hunt Monsters: Characters will go out on ships, and cull the raging sea monsters in the Eternal Ocean
Open to: Combatants
Prepare for the Parties: Characters will need to arrange and organize for the post-hunt celebration. There will be parties held in all major Corsair cities.
Open to: Negotiators
Provide for the Parties: Characters will need to prepare food, drink, and accomodations for the post-hunt celebration. There will be parties held in all major Corsair cities.
Open to: Suppliers

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Comments

[upupatomway]

Worried about the others, Atom forgets his fear of getting swallowed up and rights himself with calculated thrusts from his feet rockets. He flies back up at the beast. The monster is whipping all over and could spit out its spell in a number of directions; the best option being upward.

Atom flies at the monster's jaw and body slams into it, forcing the monster's head back so its aim is towards the sky. He just hopes Link is hanging in there and that he didn't just send him flying from the impact. The blast of energy escapes the monster's mouth upward, lighting up the sky with a line of white flame until the ether is spent. Exhausted, the monster collapses with a great splash and a wave that makes all the ships nearby rock wildly.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link's got plenty of stamina - but it's not limitless. It's with Atom's forceful slam that he's finally flung away from the monster's body. At least he manages to keep a grip on the Sword, which slides free to come with him.

Now mid-air, for a moment it seems like Link is doomed to plummet into the sea below. But this is a situation that is very, very familiar to Link, and it takes barely a second for him to sheath the Sword and pull out his paraglider.

As the monster collapses into the sea, Link just glides above, slowly descending down.

[upupatomway]

Atom turns his head frantically, looking for Link as the monster falls, first downward and then spotting him closer to level with him in the air. He sighs in relief. Maybe he should have known Link of all people would be ready for this kind of danger too.

The Corsairs on the ship cheer and hurry to abruptly change course again, several taking up the large oars to row the ship back toward the monster so they can finish the deed and start packing it in.

Atom flies over to Link and waves to him. "Thank you for coming to my rescue!"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link's much slower in the air than Atom is, so the young robot easily zips around Link as he slowly glides towards the Corsair ship. His arms are also rather occupied, so rather than wave back Link nods and waggles a few fingers in Atom's general direction.

Atom also gets a rather intense look of scrutiny. "You hurt?" Link says, as he looks for any wounds or signs of damage.

[upupatomway]

Atom glances aside, looking as though he's thinking about his answer, then back at Link. "Diagnostic is clean. No damage!"

He laughs uneasily. "I don't know if the monster would have been able to break me up by chewing, but the thought of being stuck inside its stomach and waiting for rescue or... You know..." Coming out the other side. "I'd rather not experience that if it can be helped." Atom sighs. "I didn't realize I would draw the attention of such a large monster. I meant to go for something the Corsairs are used to handling. Guess I caused them trouble instead of helping."

His concerned frown transforms into a more positive enthusiasm. "You're brave, jumping in to help me when you could be digested! But maybe this is just another day for you, with all the adventures you've been on." For all the questions he had thrown at Link, he had somehow forgotten to ask what the largest monster was that he ever faced.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link pauses, head titled to one side as he thinks - considering what might happen if Atom had been swallowed up by the monster. Would Atom really have been completely trapped?

"Your feet are flame emitters," he says. And surely, if said feet flame emitters met the inside of a colossal sea monster's stomach, Atom would soon have a way out of the beast. One that did not involve the dreaded 'other end'.

So really, Atom shouldn't sell himself short. Link helped, yes - but the young construct wasn't without his own arsenal.

[upupatomway]

Atom actually glances towards his feet and the glow of the flames that are keeping him in the air, as if he forgot such a thing was part of his body. His face wrinkles up and laughter bursts out of him, though there's a clear hint of embarrassment in the way he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and his brow furrows. An internal Duh! moment.

"I'm so used to thinking of them as being meant for flight! I'm concerned with flammable things in the area where I fly, of course, but not... using them like weapons. I've been in some- I guess you could call them battles- at home, but I never used my rockets that way. Those were usually fellow robots that got out of control and wouldn't burn any way."

[newmemorywhodis]

"You could land on things," Link suggests. Just a nice, helpfully violent tip for the young robot.

Because just because something wasn't meant to be a weapon, didn't mean that it couldn't be. And fire in particular - fire was often useful. Link had won more than a few battles thanks to some creative use of fire fruit or flame emitters. Or even just a simple torch.

Really, Link kind of wished he had flame emitter feet too. He could certainly glide a lot faster if he did.

future nonsense: Link with flame emitter shoes?

[upupatomway]

Atom's view of fire and similar forces is more complicated. His eyes narrow as he considers it.

"Maybe on things. I don't know about enemies. Fire can be so brutal, especially if it gets out of control... Honestly, I don't know if I could have brought myself to burn my way out of the monster's stomach if I didn't know it would be put out of its misery quickly afterwards. It was only following its nature." He glances back down towards the fallen monster's body and the Corsairs who had already finished the deed after it fell unconscious.

"I'm torn between joining the battle and not wanting to hurt others. Normally robots aren't supposed to harm humans. There are laws back home against it and behavior programming to prevent it in most of us. That's why I've only fought robots and big monsters, or destroyed weapons." Atom frowns, looking worried. "But I also want to make a difference here, and if one of the Imperials tried to kill innocent people right in front of me... I don't know. I'd want to defend them."

He shakes his head. "Sorry. Maybe that's rude for me to fret over in front of an experienced warrior like you."

would be fun, if I ever managed to have enough spare notoriety for it!

[newmemorywhodis]

There's a long pause, after Atom finishes speaking. Not an unusual thing for Link; by now Atom will surely have noticed that the Hylian isn't really one for words. But it's clear that Link wants to think, just a bit, before responding - and it's not until he finally glides over the ship, and drops down, that he responds.

"...All battles are brutal," he says, his eyes glancing over towards the now lifeless body of the sea monster. A monster who'd suffered Link's sword in its eye before it expired. Not fire, but still brutality. "A protector chooses how."

And Link had chosen countless times to bloody his own hands in service of protecting others. And he'll do so again, and again.

But he wouldn't blame Atom for wanting to make a different choice.

[upupatomway]

Atom lands near Link on the deck, not necessarily expecting an answer, until Link speaks. Atom steps closer and follows Link's gaze out towards the sea monster.

He appreciates the the answer isn't sugarcoated, the way some people would for him, nor dismissive. Atom turns the words over in his mind, trying to give it the careful and serious consideration it deserves before saying anything else.

"You're very strong and brave, Mr. Link. I'd imagine those things are important to your ability to determine how your battles go. How long, how painful. Or when to fight at all."

[newmemorywhodis]

Violence shouldn't ever be sugarcoated. It was necessary. Important, even. Link used violence as a tool, used it to protect.

But violence was still violence. That shouldn't be shied away from.

In regards to Atom's praise, however, Link just...hums a little. Glances away. Doesn't respond.

He's used to that kind of praise. He's heard a lot of it. It's not something new. But it's also something that, for Link, has also always felt more like...pressure.

[upupatomway]

"How do you know when the right time is to fight? I'd worry that if I was angry, I would only be fighting because of my anger, maybe even misguided by it." Atom lowers his head, grimacing for a moment at a memory.

"I'm... kind of afraid of being angry, to be honest. I made a mistake- it wasn't that long before I was pulled through the gate- and I fought someone while I was enraged, and I got so distracted by my feelings, I didn't see immediately that that battle wouldn't fix anything."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link pauses, thinking about what to say.

"...Anger isn't useful," he says. Others used anger, he knew; used it to give them focus, to drive their strikes. But anger wasn't was drove Link, and in his experience it was more of a liability than an asset. "Focus on your goal."

He didn't say what the goal should be. That might change wildly, depending on the situation. But there had to be a reason for fighting. If there wasn't, then fighting wasn't the right choice.

[upupatomway]

There's an obvious follow up question to that advice.

"How do you stay focused despite your emotions?" he asks. "I'm not programmed with the ability to disable my emotions. I don't think that can be done without disabling a robot's personality, maybe even their sense of self too. Normally it isn't an issue, but I had never felt something so extreme before then."

He realizes it might sounds like he's simply a child who hasn't developed the ability to contain his feelings the way an adult should. But he would argue it was more like a step in growing up, a bitter one, that humans might experience with trauma or suffering.

"You could say, it's the first time I experienced what humans call hatred."

[newmemorywhodis]

"Practice. Training. Experience," he says.

He didn't remember his own first battles; those memories were still lost to him after 100 years in the Shrine of Resurrection. But he's seen others take up the soldier's life, witnessed the first battles of others. And it always seemed that those first battles were the hardest, the ones that new soldiers struggled with the most. Either they'd keep going, and learn how to deal with it...or they wouldn't.

[upupatomway]

"I can do practice and training. Experience though..." Atom takes a breath and gives a pained smile, faintly amused by his predicament. "I guess it's normal to be worried about the first time. Although, maybe I shouldn't be looking at it as my first time. Just because I faced non-humans before, doesn't mean it doesn't count."

He looks toward Link. "Mr. Link, is there a type of training you've done that really helped you prepare to focus?" Atom isn't sure their skills in battle overlap much, but he'll take whatever suggestions he can get into consideration, and he's always open to trying new things.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link pauses. Reaches up to scratch the back of his head, a faint frown on his face. He's...not quite sure how to answer that question.

For him, the other kinds of training - his sword forms, practice drills - were what helped him prepare to focus. It wasn't something specific, or seperate.

"...All training?" He says. Was that a good answer? He wasn't quite sure. "Everything needs focus."

[upupatomway]

Atom laughs. "That's fair! Maybe my ether spell practice will even help a little. I bet Mr. Ziel will have more lessons that take long hours of patience to understand." He says it with an excited smile, despite the workload.

"Thanks again for helping me escape the sea monster, and thanks for listening and entertaining my questions, Mr. Link. I hope that next time we're up against a monster or another opponent, I can do more to help."

[newmemorywhodis]

"You helped."

Maybe Atom thought he needed to do more, but Link didn't. He might have wielded a blade, but Atom's distractions and aerial manoeuvring had been just as important.

[upupatomway]

"A little bit," Atom says. He's not at his full strength in this world, and all his confusing emotional hesitations had taken away from his normal ability in such a situation.

"So was that monster big by your standards, or have you faced a lot of monsters that size?" He has to ask. He knows Link had mentioned larger sounding creatures before but now there's an example they both saw for scale.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link thinks about this a moment. What was close in size to the sea monster?

"Big," he says. "Like a Molduga."

[upupatomway]

Atom chuckles. He's sure Link knows what he wants to know.

"And what's a Molduga?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Ah. Another challenging question.

Link thinks even longer about this one.

"Really big sand fish," he answers, eventually.

[upupatomway]

Atom looks dumbfounded. "Giant monster fish can live and swim in the sand?" What a wild thought! Link's world is full of more wonders with every conversation. Atom tries to think of what the closest thing living in his own world would be. Crabs or snakes? Isopods? They don't swim through the sand like a fish in water.

"Without any water?" he double checks. Fish burying themselves is a different matter.