Katzaniel

I challengenst thee to a duel! Here's how it works: Someone issues a challenge, and someone accepts. Whoever accepts must immediately write and post a story (or equivalent piece of writing) containing one and only one of the three magic words: Rock, paper, or scissors. The challenger, who has already written and saved a story elsewhere, will then post it, and the duel is won or, if tied, replayed until won (the person who posts the tying story would begin writing again immediately and post again when the other's post is made) according to the usual hand-play rules. For those of you who do not remember or never knew: Rock smashes scissors, scissors cut through paper, paper smothers rock. And no cheating! Not even Wyvern! I know this is open to many possible methods of cheating. I need not list them all... suffice to say we all trust each other Dost anyone acceptith mine challenge?

Pen. Black.

Normally, Katzaniel would not be frightened easily. Being a leopard at the moment, and having the ability to turn into any realistically plausible member of the cat family plus one version of tigertaur, she was capable of taking care of herself. She knew that, but looking face to face with someone who had the nerve to call her Kitty... she began to sweat. Looking around nervously, she backed up. With everything that was going on at the moment, the demon seemed a little distracted. Perhaps she could get out of there without being noticed. Back up... slowly... that's the way... BANG...CRASH!!! Katzaniel didn't even look to see who or what she had backed into. Eyes widening in near-panic, she took off as quickly as she could in the forward direction.

In the meantime, Katzaniel, who was trying to escape Wyvern's mysterious new plan, had morphed into an innocent looking kitten. Having been identified by the lizard, and still remembering that she had dreamed something unsavoury about him, she recognized no better option than to scram, and fast. Thus Wyvern found himself tripping over something that had not been there a second ago, and when he stopped to look, was no longer there. Turning around, confused, he spotted something shiny and was, luckily for the cat, distracted. Unfortunately, Vlad spotted her, leaning over to place the bag right in her path. Katzaniel, still in a panic over having seen Wyvern twice that day, began sputtering and spitting immediately - and learned, when she had calmed down a little, that despite all the rips and tears in the thing, finding your way out of a wet paper bag was not easy after all, especially when it was held tight by a greedy vampire. Forgetting about finding a way out, the cat decides to make a way out, and pieces of bag fly all over the area as Vlad finds himself holding a growing creature and drops the bag just before it bursts into a leopard. And the race is on. Edit: deleting no-longer-valid out-of-character comment...

In an alley nearby, Katzaniel, in tomcat form, is perched gracefully atop a garbage can, sleeping. After a few moments, however, the constant purr that had been eminating from her dissipated, its absence poignant. Then, her eyes snap open and suddenly her body is spinning through the air, changing as it goes. She lands on her feet, of course, despite the panic that her entire posture is portraying, but as a rather large tiger. It looks from left to right wildly, calming slowly upon seeing nothing to either direction. The creature, almost reluctantly, shrinks once more to housecat size, and crawls back onto the garbage can. Only a dream. It was only a dream, that huge bag, that lizard pouncing on her. Could never have happened. Before she can fall asleep once more, however, the loud sound of a door slamming puts her again into full alert. Growling slightly under her breath, she goes to investigate.

Alright, then. I can live with that...

JEER Falcon!?!?!? Ack! I think I am mad at you, too. I always thought it was Gyr as in grrrrr. Gur! Like, the letter G!!! *sigh* I think I may have to stick with Tam on that, Gyr. I don't think I can start pronouncing your name Jeerfalcon. At least, new people may be able to learn from this thread. Train 'em while they're young! Anyway: somewhere halfway between CAT - zan - ee - el CAT - zan - yel Katz

Alenya, Basil, Cre, Denton, Ebixia, Fuhra, Gresco, Horace and Iridium stared angrily at each other across the room. Denton furrowed his brows at Ebixia, who stared in elegant frost-laced airs towards Horace, who grinned evilly but irrepressibly ill-willed at Cre. Basil looked moodily towards Gresco, who pointedly refused to face Alenya, who squinted at Iridium, who eyed Fuhra suspiciously. Fuhra, however, smiled nonchalantly at the ceiling. "I don't know what's up with you all, anyway," she stated matter of factly. Basil exploded at her. "You know very well!" he declared, a moment before Ebixia dropped ice into the room with her own accusatory harrumph, and the next moment the room exploded. "It's your fault we're here!" "You saw how Cre put us here!" "Horace said she knew what she was doing!" "It's all Iridium's doing!" Denton sat nursing his wounds among the rest of them, but he muttered "I don't know how that dynamite exploded, Fuhra, but you can't blame us for the hostility. If it had gone off when we expected, none of us would be here waiting for the nurse." "We have to try again," added Gresco. "But how can we trust each other?" Cre's own mournful tones added the words, "Seven o'clock, someone said. Someone else said they would start it at six-thirty, somebody told me it would take half an hour to burn... I can't remember who said what, my head hurts so much, but it exploded at one o'clock! How could any of us have been ready?" That started its own burst of complaints, but Fuhra waited patiently for it to die down before saying her piece. "One o'clock? Then it's all up to whoever made the clock. My head hurts too, but you don't see me trying to lay blame." She pulled the cloth contraption out of the bag gingerly, along with some thread. Her hand hovered near the bottom, then added a single line of horizontal thread to the number between the large crosstitched six and eight. Horace giggled at that. "That's all it was?" Basil boomed bitterly. "Whoever made the clock!" Gresco shuddered. "And we would have screwed it up again." When the nurse came, they were all smiling at one another again. This time, they knew the dynamite would explode when they expected it to. Luckily, none of them remembered that Fuhra herself had sewn the clock.

Hiding away in your own little world Running from everything unknown Shirking from those whose banner has unfurled Avoiding all opinions but your own Cowardice... ooh, I've got a better idea... Slipping away from my job Living the life of a slob Only earning what I can't rob Tackling the least in the mob Hearing nothing but my sob Hmm, this is harder than I thought. Anyway, my creativity is drained for tonight.

Katzaniel bounded into the fray, dispensing quickly with any remaining and slightly unskilled fighters. In very little time there was, due to the cat and to the others on her side, only a few of their opponents left, and all good at staying alive. Even so it did not take long for the small group to rid themselves of most of the rest. After the initial thrust and the following panic, when everything seemed to have calmed down, Katzaniel allowed herself to look around for stragglers. She was surprised to note that more than a few remained - four of the archers had positioned themselves protectively around Kasmandre and his opponent. Looking for a way past, and meeting Usagi's eyes for a moment, the pair of animals started forward.

Count me in.

OOC: edited from brief description of my plans. IC: It hardly seemed that a minute had passed after deep slumber finally took hold of the hermit goblin before he was awake again, startled from sleep by a noise in the bushes. Gnash opened his eyes warily. It had been a long time since anything big enough to make that much noise had come by. Cocking an ear, Gnash decided that it was not one large creature, but rather many smaller ones. He tensed his muscles, scouting with his eyes the best direction in which to run. He knew that whatever it was, his best chance would be in remaining undetected, but nevertheless if that became an impossibility he did not want to meet the bearer of the noise face to face. He didn't want to meet anybody. He managed to stay still until the racket was well away, diminishing into the night. Still, he did not sleep afterward, not more than fitfully. When the sun rose, he decided that it could not hurt, looking around a little. See if he could put his self-learned tracker's skills to use and find out anything useful. The path wasn't hard to find, but there were so many feet that he wasn't sure what to make of it. Goblin feet? They could almost have been dragons, such was the level of cluster. Whatever they were, they were travelling close together, and in a hurry. He followed it a while longer, trying to find some clues. When it led directly toward a goblin city, he held back, but finally decided to continue. If it had hurt the goblins, he should help them, or so he supposed. Once, he had thought that he held no loyalty to the race that had scorned him. That was before he had been faced with the decision to betray them completely. He had declined, running off once more in solitude instead of joining the pack of humans on a crusade against gobinkind. He was not welcome among the goblins, but he was not sure he liked the humans much. He shuddered to think how bold he had walked among them, asking for help with his crazy conconctions. They hadn't killed him, and probably they would not have welcomed him into their group either, even with his little healing abilities. But he had almost asked them. Almost requested to go with them. He felt he owed a little debt for what might have happened. He made his way toward the city, still following the tracks. With luck, there would be no strange occurrances, just a goblin family heading to the village... but he knew it would not be so. He was only partially surprised when he realized that the town had been abandoned. Gnash began scurrying around in the dirt, trying to figure out, with his limited experience hunting for food, what had taken place in the village. He soon realized that the goblins had gathered in the centre of the town and then left, with the same group that had entered the city. As the tracks spread out at points here, he was able to tell that it was mostly if not all goblins, and that there had been more than enough to populate a few villages the same size. But Gnash knew that if there been somebody else, forcing the goblins to move, they would not have been with the group but rather around it. So, he should be able to leave in good conscience. Nothing was forcing this odd march. Still, curiosity persisted and he looked around some more, starting with the gathering place. Somewhere in his mind he had not decided whether to continue on this journey, or to leave well enough alone. He found ammunition for the former case when he discovered, amid the goblin prints, what must have been a human. What could a human have been doing? Using magic perhaps, to beguile the goblins to follow him? If the humans were leading, their prints would be trodden over and invisible to his eyes. What if his entire race was being gathered and led to slaughter? If he was in a position to stop it, then doing nothing would be as bad as if he had joined the crusade. Gnash spent only a little more time in the village after he made his decision. He entered a few of the houses and took some things, and when he left he had strapped to his back a handful of roughly-made spears, and in a pouch on his side the ingredients to make the few solutions he had ever discovered to be useful.

As soon as Katzaniel recognized the filthy bandits for what they were, she wanted to pounce on them, tear them apart. She felt the ancient witch doctor somewhere in the back of her mind, cowering, and perhaps it was that small presence that kept her tensing muscles from releasing, that kept her from trying to take them all. Even realizing that with only herself and Usagi it would not be a wise idea, it was difficult to stay where she was. Her mind was racing. Could they make it back to warn the others? Would they lose the opportunity that attacking now might gain? She was glad when her narrowing eyes caught the daggers on the other side of the camp. If it was not Kasmandre, at least it was one of the others from their pack. From their group. she told herself firmly, slipping into panther form. Sometimes it worried her that her mind slipped so easily into its old ways of thinking. Then again, if it meant that her body continued to slip with ease into familiar forms, she could put up with it. Exchanging a glance with Usagi, she stalked off into the night, coming up to Kasmandre from behind. All worries of taking him by surprise melted away when he looked at her coolly. She had been concerned that he would not hear her until she was close, and then perhaps panic when she trotted up to his side - or that he would notice her, but not recognize her. From his lack of surprise, she was not sure that she had needed to go to him to announce their presence. Even so, she nodded at him, and then across the encampment where Usagi remained hidden. Kasmandre, looking grim, returned the nod. "Usagi?" He spoke softly. She dipped her head once, and he launched immediately into instructions. Whispering rapid commands, his eyes firm, she doubted him not for a moment. He was a good leader. When he finished, she set off to relay to Usagi what he needed to do, and then to execute her own part of the plan.

Psimon, I'm not quite sure what you did there (thought maybe you did each letter, but how does T=116?) but isn't the easiest way to say true in binary a 1? and... nz effsitt ot dussidv ((Loose translation: yuppers)) PS. I can write much harder to break code when I'm not constricted to characters on a keyboard.

Katzaniel looked wearily ahead at Griever. Everyone had their reasons for wanting to be secretive, but if everyone continued to be so closed, how could they trust one another? If they were to travel in a group, there had to be some trust, and some accountability. Griever had told them absolutely nothing about himself. For that matter, he had asked nothing either. Nevertheless, Katzaniel both felt that she should say something, and foundered uselessly at what words could possibly help the situation. So she, like the others, said nothing to Griever. She did not, however, remain silent. To Kasmandre and the others, she said, "I agree we should get out of here as quickly as possible. However, there are things that should not remain undone. We should execute a search of the caravans, perhaps we will uncover what they will looking for. Also, we should check over the bodies - and lastly, we should open that package. Kasmandre, I presume you will want to do that. I will check this caravan." Not waiting for a response, she made good on her words, and making one deft leap towards the covered wagon she was soon inside of it.

Pretty soon, everyone but John was involved in the fight. For Katzaniel, it was a blur. She did a lot of shape-shifting, realizing early that it gave her a huge advantage, as her opponents got thrown off every time she did. They didn't seem to be able to handle the thought of something as odd as the Shift, no matter how many times they saw it. So she used it often, running around behind them, striking, twisting around between their legs, changing again. Every time it took them a moment to register in their minds that they were fighting a different creatue. Their thoughts were transparent: I've got the cheetah now, whoa, where's it going?, then they turn around, ready to contribute the death-strike on the cheetah, before: Hey, what happened to the cheetah? How'd this leopard get here? Aaaaah! She dispatched many of them quickly that way, and it didn't seem to be getting any less effective. At one point in the fight, she almost did get killed. Thinking back later on, she couldn't figure out what had happened to get her in that position, but she must have underestimated one of them. After changing into a lion, she took a second, only a second, to look around. Get her bearings. She saw Sheemie, doing his best to be a help. Who let him in here, she thought scornfully. The helpless creature is going to get himself killed within the first few days of the trip! She looked on in confusion as he aimed an arrow and shot it, straight in her direction. Too surprised to react, and chiding herself for letting it get the best of herself as it had for her enemies up until that moment, she was only able to watch in relief as it went high - and landed right in the chest of a man, standing above her and in the act of swinging a sword toward her. This time she did move, knowing that with the inertia of the sword, it could still hurt. For the remainder of the fight, she kept thinking about that moment. What had happened? She had only looked away for an instant. None of the raiders had been that close. She knew that if Sheemie had not killed the man in mid-strike, the speed and force of it would have done her in. Probably not the death-blow, not yet, but it would have led directly to the moment of her death. She still did not entirely respect Sheemie, though. Stubborness, as well as a natural arrogance, made her see it as a stroke of luck. Luck that Sheemie had managed to live up until that point in the fight, luck that he hadn't killed her himself with that shot, and bad luck that he didn't get killed afterwards. He was only going to bring unhappiness down upon them all, somehow. By his own death when they were counting on him, or another moment of confidence when he couldn't pull through with the skill that they hoped he had, he would be the downfall of them all.

Can I keep this guy? Katzaniel, Eater of Non-Members, and Chocolate. Page of a mere 60 posts, at your service. Chronically at a loss for time, I'm actually at one of those points in my life where I ought to have plenty of time to keep up, so someone whip me or something if I fall behind. I swear I'm gonna post on World Without End today. (BTW, I'm in the middle of reading the first Wheel of Time book and I saw that phrase in there. Kas, was this the inspiration for the title, or just a coincidence?) Yep, I'm gonna go try to find the greenroom now. See y'all later!