Weekly Update - June 7th 2011

Section 31 Roleplay is primarily a RPG-X Based Group, onto which we
roleplay on our 2 servers. We are a group of people aiming to create a
welcoming environment, onto which our officers can relax and enjoy their
time. We do not wish to burden anyone with lots of responsibilities, or
make them feel like they are not wanted, as everyone in our community
is!
Battlestar Valfreyja

[i]Welcome to The Battlestar Valfreyja, BS-03. Have you got what it takes
to defend your 12 colonies against the Cylon threat. if you have. Enlist
aboard Virgon's own. See you at boot camp Nugget!.

Munk wrote:Charles Marin strained and yanked hard against whatever it was holding his wrists behind his back. He guessed vines. That was what was tied around his ankles and knees anyway. He struggled more, trying to escape before whatever it was building up the campfire decided to move. The fire was getting good and hot, smoke rolling out in thick billows from the mouth of the cave and into the night beyond. He could feel the vines straining now, almost home free.

But too late. Whatever it was had finished building the fire and was standing up, impossibly tall and wide. It stared at him for just a few seconds, and when it finally spoke, it did so as if chewing on gravel.

"Do you think we are animals, Mr. Marin?"

Charles had no answer, he had been completely stunned to silence by that voice. The Creature stepped closer and he could see now that it was completely covered head to toe in thick brown fur. The only things that were not covered on it were the black hands and feet. A face, far too human for Charles' comfort, eyed him seriously.

"Well? Have you nothing to say? No defense for your years and years of reckless attempts to capture me and my kind?"

Charles managed to stutter now but it was all he could muster. "I... "

Something in The Creature's voice suggested annoyance. It moved closer, chest to chest with him and now Charles could truly witness it's immense size. It leaned down, nose to nose. Words spoken through jagged yellow teeth. It's rancid breath nearly causing Charles to vomit.

"Mr. Marin. I am trying to be civil but if you continue to say nothing I will assume the worst and make sure that you never leave this cave. It is imperative to your continued health that you be open and honest. We are a forgiving race."

Charles finally managed to squeak aloud in a voice completely unsuitable to a man of fifty years. "I'm sorry?"

"Sorry?" It moved away. Kept it's massive back to him. "Sorry. The reason I brought you here requires something more than an apology. It requires a sacrifice."

"Please, just tell me why I'm here and I can fix this." Charles said, still working to escape his bonds.

"My son is why."

Charles stopped for a moment. Heard the melancholy tone in The Creature's voice.

"Your trap, Mr. Marin. You've set them up before and we've been good about dodging them but my youngest was not so wise. He stepped in your trap and though we managed to rescue him, he died soon after."

Charles remembered now. The blood in the trap and the strange hairs nearby. He also recalled a large path cleared through the trampled brush as though something huge had made a frantic escape. He'd sent the blood and hair to an advanced laboratory in California for analysis. He'd received the test results a week later. The words printed on it still seared in his head. "Samples indicate unknown primate."

The next day he was he was out here, looking for the body, looking for more blood, looking for anything. Anything at all to prove his theory. It was a day he'd remember forever; a day the entire world would remember. If he could find what he was looking for he could finally call himself a scientist without being laughed from the room. They'd make movies and write books about this. Newspapers everywhere would bear his name.

He was lost in the fantasy when he was assaulted and dragged, semi-conscious and in great pain, through several miles of woods and mud. He woke up fully bound in this cave and now he was staring into the face of exactly what he'd been searching for.

"So it did die..." He mumbled to himself, thinking back on the memory.

"Yes. He did." The Creature replied angrily, turning back to face Charles. "You got your precious hair sample, some blood even. Finally some real evidence. But that's never been enough for you, has it? Thirty years, Mr. Marin, thirty years you've been hunting us with your traps and cameras. Tracking us with guides and dogs. You've gotten hair samples, some footprints, you even witnessed one of us drinking from a stream, something very few have ever been lucky enough to see. But I promise you... it stops now."

"You're going to kill me?"

"Maybe." It shrugged. "I am, as I have said before, full of forgiveness. Perhaps too much but there it is. I require something very simple from you. Something that is surely worth your life."

Charles stutters again. "W-what?"

"Quit. That's all. Quit and never enter these woods again."

"I can't do that. My career - "

" - is what caused this in the first place." The Creature finished. "I am well aware of what you do and who you are. You make a living off of our existence. You show photographs, collect evidence and try desperately to get the real scientific community to note your works. You're famous in many places and for many things, sometimes as a genius, sometimes as a loon. Normally you and those like you are not a problem, only catching small glimpses of our children who have yet to perfect their camouflage."

"Children?"

"Yes. Our children, much like yours. I had one, if you'll remember." A short, very silent pause before it spoke again, that same edge returning to it's voice. "You will stop or you will die. You will go and make a public announcement that we do not exist and that after thirty years of searching you have given up."

Charles shouted, echoing thickly in the cave. "But that will ruin me!"

The Creature remained calm at the outburst. Spoke in that same tone. "I assure you I can do much worse. You are a famous man no doubt but at this moment you are nothing more than a lost hiker. Another sad statistic. They may search for you. They may write books about your finds, your career and your life but I can assure you one thing. You will never be found."

Charles began to tug at his bonds more fiercely. The Creature just watched and let him do so, quite confident that the vines would hold him.

"How does it feel?" It asked. "Being trapped? You know, I had considered earlier bringing in a trap like your own, the one my son died from. I'd make you feel his pain. You would suffer how he suffered."

A heart-pumping silence between them, The Creature glaring daggers. It seemed to sigh and then said: "But I am the civil sort. You are certainly a foolish man but you are not evil. I know that."

Charles felt offended but his brain told him that it would be wise to stay quiet about it. His mouth did not listen. "I am no fool! I am Charles Marin, the most revered man in cryptozoology!"

The Creature did not stay calm this time. It wrapped a big hairy palm around Charles' neck and physically lifted him off his feet. He felt the blood slowing and his legs, still tied together, kicked weakly. He could feel his eyes getting bigger, threatening to pop. Pressure and pain invaded every part of him as his brain began to suffocate. His tongue swelled and his vision went slowly black.

The Creature drops him. "Mr. Marin you have no idea how incredibly lucky or stupid you truly are. The laws of my kind forbid reckless murder but I assure you it will not be the first time I break a law. You will leave this cave and these woods. You will never come back here and you will tell your adoring public that we do not exist and that they should stop looking. You will do this immediately."

Charles coughed violently as he returned from the brink of death. He talked between coughing fits. "Okay! Okay. I'll do it... Just please, let me live. I'm so sorry."

Did The Creature smile? Charles' vision was coming back but it was impossible to tell in the dimming firelight.

"That's all I wanted. That's it." The Creature helped Charles to his feet, brushed him off and removed the vines that were holding him. Charles only now realized how badly his wrists and ankles were bleeding from his struggling against the tight bonds. They burned sharply but he could bear it for the price of his freedom.

" Do not attempt to track us down ever again. This is not my home nor is it near our colony. Bringing yourself or others to this cave will get you no farther than a deep, unmarked grave." It shoved Charles forward. "Get out of here now and never come back."

Charles did not wait. He ran full-tilt towards the mouth of the cave. He didn't know where he was going exactly but he did know what direction he was heading. The opposite of wherever that Creature was.

The Creature shouted back from the mouth of the cave and Charles stopped and turned, afraid of angering the beast again. Everything in his body told him to just run, just get away. But he listened and stood still.

The Creature stood in the mouth of the cave, silhouetted by the firelight inside. His voice was strong even at this distance. "I swear to you, if you do not keep your promise, I will know. I will know and I will find you and I will make sure you pay the price of that betrayal."

The Creature slowly began to fade away and as it disappeared, Charles felt like he was watching it happen through a shaky video or a blurry photograph.

Honor wrote:We will be starting in the thick of a mess. There will be plenty of conflict to begin with.

The time frame has not changed. The past several missions have ended in Wraith cullings. The last three have not gone that far, but the Wraith are indeed showing up. Ryl is now 8 months pregnant with the twins.