Days 2, 3, and 4

Day 2—

Day two went significantly better than day one. I tried throwing knives some more, but after I almost hit Thia in the leg—while she was standing behind me—she took the knives away and gave me a tomahawk. I did much better with the tomahawk, probably because it’s heavier and easier to throw. I really like this weapon, but throwing it hurts my ribs.

Day 3—

Practiced with the tomahawk until my ribs hurt, and then switched over to knives. They were bigger and heavier than the other ones, but I still couldn’t hit with them. Thia can’t leave well enough alone.

Day 4—

Throwing stars are evil. Found out the Mansion has its own medical room. I’m banned from throwing anything besides the tomahawk.

Weapons Training: Day 1

Turns out the Mansion has this really nice shooting/archery range.

*yesterday*

Thia walked in, wearing that black shirt with the word “No” on it that she usually wears and looking annoyed.

“So here’s how this is going to go. We have a vast array of weapon at our disposal and you,” she pointed at me in a dramatic fashion, “will be trained to use all of them. You don’t have to be good at everything, but you will learn how to use everything. Got it?”

I nodded.

“Great. Today you shall be using,” she whipped her hand forward and a knife buried itself into the wall three centimeters from my head, “throwing knives. Have at it.”

It pretty much went downhill from there. I can’t throw a knife to save my life (hah). Or, to be more accurate, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a throwing knife.

First Impressions

*post was meant to go up yesterday, but it never did, for some reason*

I started weapons training today. It was quite the experience, but more about that later. Ao and Thia had planned to start Monday, but then part of the roof caved in and it started raining…..it was a huge mess. So I spent the week helping clean up the water and fixing the roof—as much as I could, anyway. Cracked ribs and all.

And I just realized that I never said anything about the group and I first meeting, so----

The woods were completely silent as Ire and I walked up the path. As soon as we got to the clearing were the Mansion is located, I noticed a small red dot centered between Ire’s eyes.

“Um, Ire?!”

“That’s just Thia being her usual bitchy self. Ignore it.” He lifted his hand and flipped off the large tower that’s completely separate from the rest of the Mansion. Thia shot a patch of dead grass an inch from Ire’s foot in response. “Bitch.”

The Mansion…..might have been a mansion at one time that got turned into a military base and got left to rot for fifteen years. Ire had to throw his shoulder into the front door to get it to open. “Behold,” Ire said dryly and waved his arm at the whole of the main floor. The Mansion looks just as shabby inside as it does outside.

Ire then walked off with a muttered “Laterz” and left me fidgeting by the front door. Ire is much nicer over the internet than he is in person, by the way. Then Skoll appeared out of freaking nowhere and stared me down. Skoll…… He doesn’t have a mask, but he does have bright yellow eyes that seem to peer into your soul. I stay away from him as much as possible.

Then Thia came in the front door—probably saving me from being eaten by Skoll—and gave me a tour of the Mansion. The Mansion is huge, and though it’s very rundown, it’s also structurally sound—except for parts of the roof and the floor in a couple rooms. Thia is pretty nice—condescending, but still nice--mostly. I haven’t seen her mask yet.

After the tour Thia showed me to Ao’s office/living quarters. Ao is…..hard to describe. She’s intimidating, and a little menacing, but friendly-ish. She’s….a little cold, and cat-like. She’s like a icy feline. Like a leopard—like a snow leopard! There we go. She’s kind of like a snow leopard. Kind of. I don’t know. I ramble. Her mask is freaking awesome though. It covers the lower half of her face and her neck and it’s shaped like a pair of monstrous jaws, complete with teeth.

As soon as we opened the door, she sprang up from her couch, stalking over to us. “Greetings, Coyote. As you may have guessed, I am Ao. Again, my apologies for leaving you on your own for so long." She loomed over me. “You have amnesia, I take it?” Thoroughly intimidated, I nodded. “Pity. It’s so much easier to train someone who already knows what they’re good at, even to a small extent. I trust you’ve met everyone? Excellent. Shall we go to dinner?”

And then we went down and had dinner, where Skoll thankfully ignored me, Thia fought with Ire, and Ao talked to me and kept an eye on Thia and Ire at the same time. It was nice.

Training

Our internet has been down, much to everyone’s annoyance. Ire left on a mission a couple days ago, and I’ve been training with Ao.

Training is going well—I think. Ao has been teaching me hand-to-hand combat that doesn’t seem to be any one particular style. So basically…….Ao has been kicking the living crap out of me for, like, three days straight. I have sooooo many bruises—plus some cracked ribs--but I’m mostly ok and I think I got the basic stuff down.

Holly Hell

Wow. I mean just……wow.

Ok, so Ire and I arrived at our group’s base—called the Mansion—this afternoon.

Er--last afternoon, since it’s 5:30am. I really should describe the Mansion and talk about what happened when I met everyone but……I don’t feel like it right now. I’ll do that after Christmas.

Right now……right now I only want to talk about the Mansion’s Christmas decorations.

I am told Thia was in charge of the decorating. The way she decorated the house can only be described as morbidly festive. The outside of the Mansion is decoration-free, but the inside……. Black candles on the table and fireplace mantel, skulls with red and green lights for eyes, entrails with a string of Christmas lights inside them wrapped around the staircase banister, red internal organs decorating the Christmas tree……

The Christmas tree is essentially a giant stick decorated with various human(?) organs and topped with what I think is a heart. I know it sounds horrible, but somehow Thia managed to make it all look really good.

There’s also skeleton hung from the chandelier with a noose made of Christmas lights, and a wreath attached to a deer skull over every doorframe, but my favorite has to be the complete deer skeleton wearing a jingle bell collar.

Deep down I know I should be grossed-out, but I can’t bring myself to feel anything other than impressed.

It looks like we’ll be having a small feast today. I should try to get some sleep. Merry Christmas everyone.

Ire

So I was finally found today. Not uh……Not quite sure what to make of my fellow teammate here….

After a long day of pick pocketing--addictively fun--and running around town--gotta love parkour--I returned to my hotel room to find a man who looks to be in his early 30s sprawled out on the bed watching Batman. The man has unnaturally bright red hair—obviously dyed—and an unusual fashion sense--black butcher’s apron, black fingerless gloves, dark sunglasses, and an extremely odd scarf-like mask that only covers the bottom half of his face.

When I walked into the room he pulled down his 'mask' and glanced at me. “You the new recruit?”

“Um…. Yes? My name’s Coyote.”

“Fucking finally. Do you know how hard you were to find?”

“Very?”

“Not very. You are however very forgettable.”

“So…..you DID forget me.”

“Twice.”

“You forgot me twi—why do you have a rusty saw?”

He tapped the saw against his boot. “One of my preferred weapons of choice.”

“I’m going to assume your name is Ire.”

He hmmed an affirmative and looked utterly bored. “That a whip?”

“Yeah. Technically it’s called a sjambok.”

It looked like he rolled his eyes then, it was hard to tell because of his glasses. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “kinky” and turned his attention back to the tv.

“So what now? Where’s the rest of the group?”

He lazily swung his saw at me, causing me to step back beyond his reach. “Tv. Watching….”

He ignored me for at least an hour. After a while I gave up on getting any answers and sat down on the couch (as far away from Ire as I could get). Eventually he said that we would leave sometime tomorrow to join up with the rest of the team….group….whichever it is.

I can hear Ire snore as I type this. I would love to get some sleep too, but I suspect that Ire might wake up and kill me in my sleep just for the hell of it.

It was pretty nice out yesterday—no snow or rain—so I decided to see if I could make it past the two towns and out of the area. I left my campsite and walked right out of the woods and past the towns without any trouble—but when I turned to go back the air got...........oppressive, somehow. Sort of suffocating. I decided it would be best to wait for my group elsewhere.

So I walked to the next town over (why are there so many small towns around here?), pick pocketed some guys wallet and am now renting a room at some crappy hotel. Apparently I used to be a petty thief or something, because I am suspiciously good at pick pocketing.