Poultrygeist (15) : As Destiny City is a bustling metropolis, it’s not unexpected that there should be some strange animals running the streets. Sometimes it’s a tiger, sometimes a monkey, sometimes a chicken. Sometimes it’s something worse. Strange egg clusters have appeared in Destiny City’s parks and officials aren’t really sure what they are; these eggs have nothing inside of them. Though it’s an anomaly, they are chalking it up to teenaged pranks. However, they have advised to just leave the eggs as they are. Nobody wants to say why, but if you’re out late at night, you’ll find out. In the darkness, whispered between the sounds of the city: a guttural, rasping cluck. The creature stands on stilt-like legs, rooted to the ground with razor-sharp talons. It wears a cloak of long, oily feathers that drag on the ground with a sinister scraping. If you stare into the darkness, piercing red eyes stare back at you. That’s all it takes for a confrontation: a mangled bird, maybe a chicken in another life, comes barreling out at you. It stands easily as tall as a person, but the proportions are all wrong. The smell of sulfur follows it as it lunges, pecking and screaming and scratching as it attempts to chase you away. Maybe, from the nests full of empty eggs. The battles are fierce, but fleeting; it will viciously try to chase you away but the effects are always the same: at some point, the eggs are crushed. As always, there’s nothing inside of them, but with one final wail, the bird will vanish into a plume of foul smoke.

Note: If you choose to encounter one of these bird-like creatures, your character will recognize they are not youma. It is impossible to tell if it is a single entity or if there are many. The bird does not seem to understand or care to listen to human words. It will always disappear in a malodorous plume of smoke and leave nothing but a foul odor and a clutch of empty, broken eggs behind. This RP can be used as a battle requirement as long as there are two powered characters involved; you must be interacting with another player’s powered character. This does not count as the one youma battle per stage for growth so characters can still use an NPC youma battle as well as this one for growth purposes. This can only be used as a battle requirement once per character, but there is no limitation for how many times a player can use this prompt.

It felt like an age had passed since Kaðlín had last gone hiking. Surely it was much too hot for it now, not that she had enough time in her schedule to devote to a real hike. Her job at the Food Pillow had grown so overburdened with multiple functions and staff downsizing that she nary had the time — or energy — outside of work to do anything for herself. Including the patrols, trainings, and coordination she so hoped to implement following her and Hy-Brasil's failed attempt at kidnapping.

That afternoon, her shift ended early and Kaðlín promised herself a walk at bare minimum. Since she was helping to open a different location, the closest park in her immediate vicinity belonged to an upper-scale suburb that, hopefully, didn't suffer much in the way of crime or magical happenstance. She didn't think she had it in her to contend with a Negaverse officer or a mugger at the moment.

Giving her GPS a last check, Kaðlín turned off the sidewalk and onto a meticulously maintained gravel path that was lined with cornerstones. On either side of her, mature trees rose up and spread their impressive canopies, hiding her from the sun's rays and providing a palpably cooler atmosphere for her walk. The path she walked wound back on itself in a serpentine fashion as it climbed ever higher on the back of a hill. For each segment she crossed, the trees thickened ever more and a fine burble of rushing water reached her ears.

Farther ahead was a wooden bridge fashioned out of a fallen log, and beyond that, what looked like an outcropping set amidst man-made retaining walls. Whatever the project was, it looked unfinished — plastic tarp still marked some of the areas that hadn't yet been covered in bark dust. Not that it mattered to Kaðlín; she'd rather find the brook that drummed out such a sweet song against river rock.

So across the bridge she went, then wound her way around an old oak that must have been a hundred years old or more. It was only when she'd reached the other side that she realized the burbling was not, in fact, a burbling at all.

It was a clucking.

a-disgruntled-dragon
for ariccia