Vavaren

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Vavaren is a richly forested planet with large bodies of water. It's cold, not cold enough for snow but cold enough for frost to form overnight. The oxygen levels are high.

There are no mammals, only lizards, insects, arachnids and some birds. Everything is huge.
Their oceans are populated by giant squids, immense fish and various other enormous and terrifying creatures of the deep.

The Vavare have built large webbed communes in the trees.

Visitors are not common, Vavare tend to do most of their business off world but those who visit are welcomed warmly.

Ships will dock at a small simple space port which is surrounded by their capital "city", if you can call it that.
It looks more like a vast marketplace.

Visitors are advised to wear rebreathers when leaving their ship, dress warm and to avoid any flames, sparks or static buildup.

Enjoy your stay honored friends, welcome to Vavaren.

Asher and James hastily followed Kay's example, Asher unstrapping his gun and preparing to draw it if needed. "Oh crap," muttered James.

Starr looked up at the tapestry again with a frown then closed her eyes and thought back. "Yes" She said with a gasp "I remember, there was a long hall with mother and father's picture at one end and more all the way down of..." She paused then frowned, uncertain if she should say anymore "There was a tapestry like this one at the other end" She said instead and looked back to the dragon one.

Up close like this, that bird was huge. No wonder they were told to avoid them, that thing was the size of a bus with an enormous wingspan. It let out a low cawwing call. Armin and Fardhe clutched one another's hands tightly and remained statue still.

The Aphids reacted to the sound, ambling rapidly for shade. Unfortunately a lot of that shade was the shadow cast by the bird itself. It seemed the creatures had very poor vision and were, as Fardhe had stated, not particularly bright.

"Then we are especially honored." The priest bowed low. "I praise the wisdom of the weaver, who has brought you to us. I only hope I can do her will and will not disappoint." He seemed to think of something and scuttled off, returning quickly with a silk bound book. "Our scriptures, perhaps they can shed light on your own story." He offered her the holy book.

James was scared by this huge monster bird, but he couldn't help admiring its sheer hugeness. This creature was amazing!

Asher wasn't really interested in how cool the bird looked. He just cared about whether the others were safe, and what he would do if the bird attacked one of them. He doubted a bullet would even penetrate those feathers. It could see them, he was sure. The question was just whether it would take one of them, or one of the aphids. This was terrifying.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:"Then we are especially honored." The priest bowed low. "I praise the wisdom of the weaver, who has brought you to us. I only hope I can do her will and will not disappoint." He seemed to think of something and scuttled off, returning quickly with a silk bound book. "Our scriptures, perhaps they can shed light on your own story." He offered her the holy book.

Starr took the book gently and looked at it "Thank you" She said, bowing her own head then looking around to find a place to sit and read this book quietly.

Kay was far too terrified to even look up at the damn thing. He kept his head down, positioned so he could see his companions, just, and trying very hard to stay as still as possible.

The bird circled the clearing, letting out another caw.

The aphids made a chattering noise and continued trying to take shelter. One of them pretty much tripped over Asher.

---

The temple didn't really have seating, or pews, just padded cushions to kneel upon.
The priest bowed his head once more telling her "if you need anything, just ask." and left her to go pray.

Kneeling wasn't exactly possible for the dragon, so she found a piece of wall to hold up as she perused the book, reading quickly but careful of the pages themselves. She would stay until it was dark or someone came to get her, whichever came first

Asher held perfectly still, forcing himself to not react to being stepped on by aphids. He hoped they weren't drawing attention to his location. They probably were though, darn it.

Armin and his cousin seemed to be quietly mouthing a prayer, eyes fixed on the bird as they remained stock still.

The bird dove, straight for the tumbled Aphid and anything underneath it. Uh oh.

This, naturally, meant Asher was in the bird's talons now. He didn't yell, because honestly he was a bit too shocked to react yet.

"Asher!" James yelled.

Kay's eyes widened, he leapt to his feet and drew his gun.

The spiders cowered as the bird flapped its wings and took off with an aphid and android in its talons.

Kay fired twice, missing because he was a terrible shot and shoved the gun into James' hands, androids had better aim. As the bird rose above them he focused on the bird's mind. It was an animal, it meant it had thoughts.

Armin yelled for help while his cousin ran for the nearby treeline and started to rapidly scale the branches.
Vavare really were excellent climbers.

Asher recovered from the shock of being caught by a giant bird, and twisted in its grasp, trying to get a good angle to shoot at its thick legs and massive body. He couldn't reach its head from this angle, which limited his ability to do damage a lot, and he couldnt seem to pry its huge talons open enough to free himself. This was bad.

James took the gun and tried to hit the bird, which was rapidly becoming harder as it flew away, but he managed to get a few hits on its body and maybe even its head, which might hurt it. "GIVE ME BACK MY BROTHER, YOU BITCH."

Kay raced off after the damn thing, not really even looking where he was going. He was far too focused on that thing's brain. Sleep, sleep... sleep you bastard.

Fardhe reached the upper branches of the tree and was already rapidly spinning a drag line from spider silk to use as a sort of lasso. He was going to try to catch the damn thing.

There was the loud sound of a larger weapon being discharged. Viti, hearing the yelling had come out of the treeline armed with some sort of shotgun.

The bird cawed loudly in protest, the bullets hurt, the voice in its head hurt. Its grip loosened a little as it twisted in the air and tried to get away from the attackers. The aphid was squirming and trying to break free, spewing a sticky waxy substance from the nodules on its back and kicking out with its legs.

Asher struggled desperately in the hawk's grasp, feeling its hold weakening. Nope, he was not interested in being gutted by a bird today, thank you very much. He was out of bullets now, so he focused instead on trying to force its claws open.

James continued to shoot the hawk until he also ran out of bullets, and shouted obscenities as he hurried after the hawk as well.

Viti continued to fire but the bird was a little out of range now.

Fardhe grabbed onto a branch and flung his line out, managing to hit the bird but not actually snag anything as it flew off

Kay wasn't about to let some giant bird hurt Asher though. He stopped running, standing stock still and glaring up at it.

The bird cawed in pain and lost grip on both the aphid and the android. Unfortunately it was... rather high up now.

Fardhe flung his rope again, this time in an attempt to catch Asher. Aphid be damned, their guests were way more important.

Fardhe's rope didn't quite reach Asher as he fell, and although he tried to grab for it, he couldn't quite reach. Asher instinctively grabbed for the nearest object to try and do something. The nearest object happened to be the aphid, which was utterly useless for stopping his fall.
He didn't have time to see what was below him, but he knew it was probably going to be pretty solid and painful to land on. He might survive; the aphid wouldn't. Poor thing. He let go of the aphid--he refused to use it as a cushion for his fall--and hoped that his memory bank would survive at least.

Thankfully there wasn't solid ground below, no, there was a lovely inky black lake.

Fardhe swore under his breath as he missed Asher, reeled in his rope and scurried down the tree.

"LAKE!" He yelled loudly. Advantage of being high up, he could see better where Asher was falling.

Armin nodded and the three spiderkin ran toward the lake.

The bird meanwhile crashed through the treeline and groggily collapsed to the ground. It wasn't in a good way and that final crash had probably broken a wing.

Kay blinked a few times and raised a hand to his face. His nose was bleeding. Damnit. Blearily, he headed after the spiderkin.

Moone and Skye came flying out after finding out where Asher and the others had gone off to. Skye flew over to Asher to catch him by the arm and slow his descent so that he wouldn't be hurt by hitting the water, though as heavy as he was, she couldn't stop him even with Moone's help once the girl had sent the chicks back to her room then came over to grab his other arm

James looked at Kay worriedly, then decided who cared about a bloody nose when Asher was in danger, and hurried toward the lake. He felt a surge of relief at the sight of the hawk girls, followed by fear that Asher might drag them under too. That would be pretty bad.

Asher hit the water with a massive splash, slowed considerably by Skye, but still falling very fast indeed. The water finally got a yell of fear out of him as he started to sink rapidly. Water! Why did it have to be water?

"Do not worry friend! We will get you out!" Armin yelled as all three spiders set to work on ropes and nets.

Kay likewise didn't much care about his nose right now, he cared more about Asher. Feeling rather useless, he stood back and let the spiders get their nets into the water.

How deep was it? How hurt was Asher? And could he even swim? Androids didn't float.. right?
Kay chewed his lip anxiously.

Asher was very, very good about repairing his skin when it was damaged, so the water didn't immediately get into his circuitry at least. He sank straight to the muddy bottom of the lake, where he shuddered and waited for his brain to shut off. There was no way he could last long at this depth, after all, eventually some seal was going to fail and then he'd be an unconscious lump of metal until he was dried out. He didn't want his friends, or especially Kay, to see him like that. Ugh.

James decided he'd be pretty useless here, so he went back to check on Kay. "You all right, man?"

Kay looked alarmed and worried and shook his head. Of course he wasn't alright.

The spiders weighed down their nets with rocks and tried to throw them around about where they thought Asher had sunk. This wasn't overly easy, it was a fairly large lake.

"Can any of you swim?" Viti asked. "If we can get a rope to him, we can haul him out."

Kay raised a hand and emptied his pockets of stuff, including his tablet which he handed to James.
Viti handed kay a sturdy looking silken rope.

Skye and Moone had had to let go once Asher hit the water. Moone stayed over the space just above the water while Skye came over to help with the nets, to drop them over the right place.

James looked worried. "Umm Kay, if you get eaten by something, Asher's gonna kill me." He took the tablet, frowning.

Asher was considering how to get out. Maybe he could walk along the bottom of the lake, but he didn't know how big it was, and he was pretty turned around at this point. Might be best to just hope someone found him, they'd probably seen where he'd landed.

Kay shook his head at James. He had to help Asher, they couldn't just leave him at the bottom of a damn lake. Who knew if he was okay or not?
He stripped off his coat and shoes, took the rope and waded into the water. It was FREEZING. he shuddered, tied the rope around his own waist and swam out to approximately where Asher had landed.
The water was so cold, and extremely dark. He wasn't sure he'd even be able to see anything down there, but he took one last look back at the shore, looked up at the hawk girls, took a deep breath and dove under the surface.

James waited, pacing along the shore, now terrified for both his brother AND Kay.

Asher was surprised to not be offline yet. Maybe he really did fear water more than he should.
Then he felt something moving in the water somewhere nearby, and promptly remembered that water was a terrifying thing that he hated. Oh, this was awful. He couldn't see anything.