I watch the bandit leader Kaitlyn from behind a tree. I spawn another bug from my wrist; it's about time we adopted a new child.

Or failing that, she'll make an excellent meal.

I charge my gunblade and silently jump at the bandit.

(OOC: @Archemiday-Thebard: permission to commence PvP combat?)

((Sorry if my grammar and spelling aren't perfect. I'm on a tablet which isn't exactly suited to typing..... And for some reason my keyboard itself is slow to respond and rather glitchy....))

"Yeah? Could've fooled me, bub."

I whirl my proto-sword and advance, adamant on getting the truth out of this guy. His sudden attack tells me he has something to hide.
I stop abruptly when a female knight dashes out in front of me, brandishing a Calibur and telling me to stop. She thinks I'm going kill him. And I realize, as I stand there, legs bent nearly into a crouch, proto-sword held tight in my hand, teeth bared behind my Kat Mask, that she has every reason to think me murderous and insane. As does this Albert fellow. I must look like an actual Kat Tribe warrior, purple eyes glittering dangerously beneath my cowl, large frame and feral posture, and a coating of dust and rocks lending a weathered, aged look to my armor. I let out a deep sigh and relax my stance,taking yet another step backwards and sheathing my sword. I relax my jaw and put a hand on Chester, who's fur still bristles.

"I'm..... I'm sorry. I'm scared and hurt and I've lost everyone and everything I gave a damn about. In the last day, I've been stripped of my rank, equipment, and citizenship for crimes I did not commit. My name is Vatarian, and a day ago, I was a vanguard of the spiral Order. Now I'm an outlaw. And soon I'll be bandit food. My humblest apologies for attacking you.... I am.... I am known to be rather too aggressive in certain circumstances. This being one of them.

Who are you people?"

(00C: can my character be partialy resistant to the swarm and is the first person/construct to notice gwens infestation? Equipment: motion booster enhanced mecha legs and an armored right gauntlet used as a shield and a bashing board deals damage similer to a lumber ;D also has a very light cannon mostly a flash of light used to blind enemies, accelerated healing, lastly my motion boosters and cannon are stuck with sand at the moment until I get it cleaned. appearence: half knight half mech with a singular ocular lens, dans face is shrouded by a hood with the glow from the lens shining purple, he has a t-shirt and shorts on which means no armor)

Your resistance to the Swarm is directly proportional to the inorganic amount of your brain. If you have a mechanical brain like Arch's, you will be completely resistant to it. If you have semi-sentient implants in your brain, those will be unaffected in the event of infestation.

That said, if the Swarm attempts to infest you through an inorganic part of your body, you'd better pray that it can't get through that part. A Void branding on a mechanical limb, for example, will be totally ineffective.

my joints are all but useless now. I crawled through the desert sands seeing things that aren't there. Until I heard the sound of clashing metal coming from over a far sand dune. People? I stopped crawling and listen closely it sounds like fighting. I reasoned that it might be dangerous to get any closer in my condition, but I was in desperate need of help. I crept closer until i was just over the sand dune. There were three knights talking to eachother. Where was the fighting? I readied my gauntlet and fired a burst of energy into the night sky. That should get their attention i thought as i tried to reload my cannon, I heard clicking and then a long creak, damn my cannon's jammed.

OOC: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Too much swarm for me.

Also OOC: Sorry guys, school started again today.

School started for me too. I can't be on on school days until 3:30 PM or so. :(
IC:
What was happening? If there were people around... I mean, if... wait...

My thoughts drifted around like floats in the sea. Eventually, I gathered them together. Those runes on my chest... did they had anything to do with my random intervals of murder? I thought so... How could I remove them? At least there wasn't anyone around to see me if I turned into my Void form right now.

Suddenly, a blast of energy flashed into the sky, catching my eye. Bits of energy fell near me. In a bright explosion, the runes became marginally smaller. Wait... that was it! If I could gather a few supernovas... the runes might disappear! If I could survive them. Heading in the direction the energy burst came from, I hoped that I could gather enough energy to make the runes disappear.

I glanced at the pile of sand and scrap metal, stopping to dust the sand off. A knight's visor appeared.

"Hey, uh, could I borrow some of your energy? It's a matter of life and death," I semi-truthfully said. It was a matter of everyone else in vendetta's life and death. I knew I probably looked silly, but I had to borrow as much energy as my energy tank could hold, to get rid of those runes and probably exorcise whatever the source of the runes was.

Sanaca sisghs, shaking her head.

"Arche, I just don't know what we should do, Gwen's being acting far too strange lately, I shouldn't of allowed her to just walk away while she was acting like that. But now we have these two new guys, and they might need our help, what should we do?"

OOC: I can't believe only one knight saw the flare. Sanaca break us up before we blow ourselves sky high. And dude if you've read my posts you would know that my joints aren't working anymore, which means I can't run away so that means we're both screwed to the RP bomb unless something interdimensional happens ;)

Kaitlyn: I dodged the slash, and did a front flip, kicking the attack in the middle of it for some distance. I fired off a few shots while retreating

Arch: "We really shouldn't have. Oh, I cracked it. Oh. Oh no. Oh gosh. Erm. Ever hear about the Swarm?" I said worryingly to Sana.

(OOC:sorry didn't see the edited post) I raised my gauntlet and blocked the void shots. The infected knight then shudered and collapsed. Poor guy, I guess I can part with some ce, I manualy turned the gears in my cannon and removed the energy from the chamber. "good luck," I wispered to the downed knight as I pressed the energy into his runes.

(OOC:
one who was acting as strange as Gwen had
You're onto something. Keep investigating.)

When I woke up, I found that my runes were a little smaller. Looks like he decided to give me some ce after all. I should thank him. Except for he wasn't there. Either he left, or there's something really wrong with me. I walk away. I still only had 10 crowns in my pocket, and I needed to get more. Fast. I check out the weapon shop, and see a gruff man who appeared to be the sword dealer.

"Um, do you happen to have a Flourish I could buy?"
"No. This is the gun dealer. Stop making stupid deals before I blow yer face off."

Man, something's wrong with my recognition skills today. I used to be able to pick out a sword dealer out of thousands out gun and bomb dealers. Ah, THERE'S the sword dealer.

"Um, do you happen to have a Flourish I could buy?"
"Why, certainly! It'll cost you 7500 crowns."

I cringed. I could barely scrape that much by swiftly defeating Lord Vanaduke. But HERE? Money-making was bound to be much harder. I wouldn't be able to scrape that much up in DAYS. And it looked like the other people were having trouble with getting something good too. No help from that side. Well, it looked like I would have to get a 3 star sword, given the trouble I've gotten into today. But my calibur was completely broken, because of the bandit attack. And there wasn't even an alchemy machine.

Crafting was going to take a whole day without an alchemy machine. And I'd be vulnerable to bandits while I was making the sword. I dismissed the thought. Who'd want to steal from someone who had nothing left?

Those Spiral idiots. I would get them for doing this someday.

So I went to find the materials needed for a nightblade. I would need 10 Dark shards, 3 brimstone, 2 forbidden fruit, and 1 phial of phear for crafting.

Without many fiends, I couldn't get that. With only a Brandish, a tiring blaster, and nothing to repair the calibur and blaster with, I was doomed in here.

EDIT: I forgot he has the brandish too. Sorry. Editing post now to fit that.

New combat post

(OOC: New additions to the combat post will be italicized. Also, I have no intention of killing Kaitlyn, I just need to defeat her in the interests of character development. Is that okay?)

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/86946?page=8#comment-785432

Try this.

The last story post you made...
...appears to reply to this.
The person you're talking to ignores you and runs in the direction of energy flashes.
He then chases Danpixed and passes out.
He was last seen in the town of Vendetta.
Meanwhile, Sanaca glances at your character, thinking you confused.

Can you take it from there?

Sorry guys. I've been busy and have no time for the RP anymore. Feel free to take over my characters

Archemiday breaks in to a fancy dance while singing karaoke. Then he makes the 'Transformer' sound when they're changing, and becomes a streetlamp. Then he Morse codes the phrase "Big ladies don't skin bears.' And explodes.

I have school, but I can still scrape up some time.

Besides, I did say they had weak armor, and they took all my materials too. Unlike you people. >:(

I fire off a few more rounds from my gunblade. Kaitlyn yelps as she goes down, and I jump on her and ready my sword to behead her. But...darn, why can't I? As I gaze into her fearful eyes, I see another person in their reflection, someone who, like her, desires to live and be free just as much as she does.

She is alive.
She is human.
So was I, once upon a time.

A tear rolls down my cheek. I plant a kiss on her sweating forehead and whisper, "Your life is spared. Spend it wisely." I get up and walk into the dead forest.

I reach the outer border of the forest, and I stumble upon the savage army, led by a towering Void Chieftan. I swallow my fear and march up to him. "I need your army." He just laughs at me. Idiot. I growl and telekinetically push him to the ground. Before he can get up, I plant my boot on his neck and lean close to his face. "I said I need your army." He tries to kick me off; bad move. I grind my heel into his neck, stopping all hostile movement on his part. Of course, being a Void creature, it'll be harder than that to kill him, but my point gets across. I let him get up, and he gestures to the army and bows to me.

This could work.

The materials disappeared from my Brandish. Inserting the 1000 crowns inside the Brandish, the Brandish became a Nightblade in a flash of darkness. Evil emanated from the tip of the blade. I shuddered just touching it. I quickly shoved the Nightblade in my knapsack. The Nightblade had made me very uncomfortable already. I felt that if I tried to wield the Nightblade for more than 20 minutes straight, my Void form would be permanent. That wasn't what I wanted.

I spotted two knights running toward the forest. I took out my Blaster and tried to shoot them, but just as I pulled the trigger, a tiny bullet came out only to fizzle away a few feet away from me. The Blaster broke apart into a pile of scrap. I frowned. Even if I was good at close range combat, NO ONE can survive without a gun. And that included everyone, including the master of swordfighting. I suddenly realized I didn't know any good recipes for guns that didn't have a prerequisite. Except for the Autogun and the Frost Gun. Since literally everyone had a superior gun (namely the blaster) to those, I wanted to pack getting a gun in and go sleep. Except I can't. If I try to sleep I'm going to get robbed.

Well, I had about enough to make a Silent Nightblade. But, as I took out my Nightblade, I was attacked by bandits. There were more of them this time, and they seemed to have better armor. A puny 3* sword wasn't enough to damage them. All I could do was run away. I hid near the back of the armor shop. Bad move, more bandits passed by. Dammit, there were bandits everywhere! I felt as if there was just about no place I could hide without being spotted by bandits. Still running, I turned around the corner. It didn't seem as if I could run much longer to me.

"Let's try and see if she's back at the Inn, if not, we mind as well get better equipped. The dangers out here are nothing compared to Gwen, but we don't want to die trying to find her." Sanaca said as she and Archemiday entered the Inn, and went back to their room. It was no surprise at all that she wasn't there. As they dropped off their crowns and went about their business, Sanaca was met with an abrupt bout of remorse. In the very few days she had been here, so much had happened, and she was no where closer to getting back to Haven. Taking a moment, she recovered and as she grabbed some extra medical supplies, her hand brushed against the Shadow Silver, sending shivers up her spine. They had best find a use for it.

"Where should we start?"

(OOC: Random Number picker, 1 = Forest, 2 = Mountains, 3 = Barren-lands... 1!)

"How about the forest?" Archemiday replied." Sanaca nods in agreement.

"Sure, the forest it is. I might find some new plants to make some concoctions with as well."

(OOC: I'll fix that, but from your previous parts I assumed you were in the forest addressing those Void dudes and thought that Albert was near the other Knights. Sooo yeah, not sure where you are but ok...)

Something catches Sanaca's eye, and she gasps, pushing Archemiday into an alley. Shushing him before he can protest, Sanaca gestures to what seems to be Gwen, speaking with another Knight, but she looked quite different. Before either can respond, a gravely voice sounds behind them.

"Looking for trouble?" The Bandit revealed himself, smiling wickedly. "Trouble makers are always out at night." Sanaca reached for her Brandish as she steeled herself for battle, Archemiday already pointing his Flourish at them. "Ha. What a joke." With surprising speed, the bandit knocks the two out of the alley, making quite a large commotion. More bandits appearing behind him. Grunting, Archemiday retaliates, Sanaca pushing herself off the ground and looking back to see what Gwen was doing.

"Gwen!" Sanaca cried out desperately, against all odds of what Archemiday had told her, she clung onto the hope that Gwen was still there.