CATS

Totally bro! you called i'm here! The party has arrived! .... Wait I'm not late am I?

Jack got up, gathered his things, and went on to the place Hans had told him to, ready for whatever was going to happen next.

Jack nodded in response to Wolfgang's question. "I've been in over my head more than once before, it's part of the job description, in my experience; so I'm more than willing to accept that possibility if it means a chance to work with a competent group such as yours," he said.

"Thank you," Jack said, beginning to bow, but stopping halfway as he remembered Karene's words about formalities. He moved over towards Wolfgang, feeling a bit silly, but excited nonetheless that he was really getting a chance to join the Grandzenschtraum mercenaries. If they accepted him into their ranks, that would be it, he would be set; no more working with idiots who got themselves killed and left him poor and jobless, he'd be working with the best. Assuming that they thought he was worth keeping around, of course, but he intended to do his best to prove himself if given the chance. "Greetings. My name is Jack; I'm a lone mercenary searching for an employer, and I'd like to offer my service to your group, simple as that. I was told to say that Karene has recommended me," Jack said to Wolfgang, speaking more plainly now.

"Holy shit, an explosion. Better check it out!" Jack said to himself, once again hauling himself up from the bar. One glance around the tavern showed that, as luck would have it, the rich guy and the healer girl were thinking what he was thinking. As if that weren't convenient enough, the dead guy also seemed to have changed tacks and decided to be a bit more friendly. It was almost like events were conspiring to become interesting and flow in Jack's favor, he thought. He offered and, if wanted, gave the dead guy any assistance that he might have needed, then ran off (or rather, ran as best as he could in his armor) towards the commotion, possibly accompanied by dead guy and healer girl, depending on what those characters decide to do. Arriving outside and moving towards the docks, Jack talked to various random people along the way, asking what all was going on. Apparently a ship had exploded or something, which was great news, because it meant jobs for people like him. A ship of the line, attacked and destroyed in an Ursian port, with neither the guards nor the ship's crew being able to stop it, or even knowing how it had happened? Everywhere people whispered about devious Neviskotian saboteurs and spies; people would be feeling afraid and insecure, meaning they'd want to hire mercs to watch their backs, give an extra boost to the defenses of their ships or caravans. There were more than a few who predicted that another war was well on its way, and that would be even better for Jack, as wars were like candy shops for mercs. He was also able to gather that, at the moment, there was some kind of big hubbub in the marketplace. Something something robed guys something, was the gist of it. Better check it out! Jack arrived in the marketplace and quickly came upon a huge knot of people who were in some kind of situation; they weren't hard to find, all he had to do was follow the stream of interested, curious citizens who were trying to get a look at whatever was happening. Judging by the copious number of bodies on the ground, all of them robed, it looked like these people had caught up with the dastardly Neviskotian spies who had blown up the ship. Shadowy cloaks and quarterstaffs? These guys fit the bill for ninja saboteurs, down pat. Jack arrived just as the guards were getting finished with whatever it was they were doing here, probably congratulating this motley group of people for their service to Sergio Port. At first he wondered who this strange group of people could be--they seemed to hail from every nation, with all kinds of different builds and fighting styles accounted for. However, as he looked a bit more closely, he recognized a few key people here and figured it out. That guy, Jack knew, was the leader of the Grandzenschtraum mercenaries! Holy shit! The Grandzenschtraum mercenaries were well known for being badasses and the envy of sellswords the world over, or at least, Jack had heard such tales from a few of the guys he'd traveled with. Granted, he had traveled with a lot of drunks and idiots, so it was hard to tell when something was real and when it was just a story; but he had to admit, any group which had that many syllables in its name was probably going to be a bunch of badasses. The stories said that they had a wyvern rider whose mount was so fearsome that it was often mistaken for a dragon, and that they traveled with a druid whose knowledge and intellect outstripped even that of the greatest sages, and so forth and so on. No wonder these people had so effortlessly beat down a bunch of no doubt very skilled opponents, they were the Grandzenschtraum mercenaries. Jack could feel it in his bones, his luck was turning around! After taking a few moments to muster up some courage, he approached a woman with long blonde hair and a fellow with messy, strawberry blonde hair. He'd probably be rejected, but it wasn't like he had anything to lose, and he'd never forgive himself if he missed a chance to work with the Grandzenschtraum mercenaries. "Excuse me, I know you're likely quite busy, but I noticed that you have a fairly large mercenary troupe assembled here and I feel the need to make you a humble offer. I myself am also a mercenary, put out of work recently and searching for a new employer. I know that you likely have no need of me, but still, if you would be so kind as to accept it, I would offer my lance to your will," Jack said, standing up straight and putting on his best honorable-soldier attitude, a look he'd mastered back when he was in the Ursian army.

"Huh," Jack said. He listened long enough to figure out that the guy wasn't hiring, and after that the monologue was mostly lost on him. "Suit yourself," he said, shrugging before he walked away. Jack got the feeling that there were some ulterior motives at work there, what with this fellow turning out a massive amount of money to a cute healer girl, but suddenly throwing up the cold shoulder when approached by a male merc. It had been worth a try, though. Jack went back to his drinks. He may not be able to find any work, but at least he'd be able to forget about that for a while.

well the thing about IRC rooms is comments made there don't stick around for people who weren't there at the time to see afterwards, and I don't have oodles of spare time to sit around doing nothing but camping out in a chat room and reading everything people say there; however an actual chat topic doesn't have this problem, posts made here will still be there for me to read when i get around to checking this RP again so i do like to have a chat topic for people to post important things in, which i wouldn't be able to see if they were only said in an IRC room, and so that i can communicate with people who aren't online at the same time as i am, and etc

well i wanted to communicate with roy about the same time post dealie, and i'm not a fan of carrying out OOC convos within the RP topic itself, so this seemed to be the logical course of action though i did forget that there's an IRC channel for this; are you guys in there chatting it up all the time and that's why an actual chat topic isn't really needed?

lol, same time post, talk about unfortunate timing roy just assume jack butted in after synthia was done talking

Last job was a bust. Bad guys knew they were coming, set up traps. Archers on the cliffs, everyone turned to pincushions. Jack would've been, but his armor was too thick for the arrows to penetrate. Getting away with his life wasn't as good as it sounded, though. Employer yelled at him, was angry because the others all died, took it out on Jack because he was the only one left to take it out on. Got no pay, just a few more nicks in his plates. It was ironic, he wore such heavy armor to guard his life, but sometimes he wished he wasn't the one guy who survived, at least the others didn't need to fill their bellies anymore. Jack still needed to, but had no means of doing so. He was now alone, almost coinless, and jobless. That meant drink, and drink meant tavern. Jack walked into the tavern and threw his last few coins at the bartender. He started in on his drinks, not even bothering to take his armor off. It was loud in the tavern, things were happening. Jack drank. Somewhere, a gunshot went off. Jack drank. A wyvern rider came in. Filthy Neviskotians walking around like they owned the place. Jack drank. Some dead guy was hauled in. Jack drank. Someone healed the dead guy. Jack drank. The dead guy was passing out drinks and 500 gold to the healer. Jack raised his glass and took a sip, then spit it out and stopped, running that through his head again. The dead guy passed out free drinks and 500 gold to somebody for helping him. The dead guy was loaded and not shy about sharing the wealth. Jack couldn't miss this chance. He grabbed his spear and hauled himself up from the bar, then clanked over towards the dead guy and the healer girl. They seemed to be in a lively conversation, Jack came in on the dead guy asking the girl for her story. Maybe they were into each other, or considering that he still looked partially dead, maybe the dead guy was just trying to charm some more healing out of her. The polite thing to do here would be to hang back and let them talk, but Jack found it difficult to care about politeness, being slightly drunk and in a foul mood, to put it mildly. He cut in on the conversation. "Greetings. I'll be frank with you, I overheard your payment of an absurd amount of gold to this girl for fixing you up, and I'm hoping to get a share of that wealth. I noticed that you have a problem you weren't able to solve on your own, what with the arrows in your back and such. You could use a strong soldier by your side, I could use some gold. I propose that you give me some coins, and then I go and poke whoever you need me to with this sharp stick of mine; everyone's a winner. What do you say? No offense, but I daresay I'll hold up a bit better than you did when they start shooting at me," Jack said.

whooooo stat rping here i come Name: Jack Nickname: Gender: Male Age: mid 20s Class: Knight Affinity: (This is strictly flavor and not actually needed for any particular reason) Weapon proficiency: lances i suppose Weapon of Choice: his lance Inventory: (A character will only have an inventory if they spent their initial points on equipment. If nothing was sold or bought, the character should only have an Iron weapon or basic Tome. These can have custom names if desired but they should be noted as Irons/Tomes) Raw Stats: HP: 4 STR: 4 MAG: 0 SKL: 3 SPD: 2 LCK: 1 DEF: 5 RES: 1 Simplified Stats: HP: 12 MT: 4 Hit: 3 Evade: 3 AS: 2 Defense: 5 Resistance: 1 Occupation: (Optional) Appearance: (guidelines: eye color, eye size, hair color, hair length/style, skin tone, build; generally what said character wears) (description/picture) is this required Nature/Disposition: (Optional) Hometown: some place in ursium Connections: (Optional) Backstory: Jack was a man like any other, born and raised in Ursium, living the life of an Ursian. His family was poor so he went off and signed up for the army when he was old enough, and he was a pretty ok soldier. His group of dudes was sent to assist a dragon slayer in (surprise) slaying a dragon one day, and this particular dragon turned out to be quite the tough cookie. Jack's buddies mostly got slaughtered leaving an injured Jack and the dragon slayer alone against the dragon; the slayer fought it pretty well, while Jack sat and watched and tried not to die, but in the end neither side could defeat the other, and the dragon fled knowing that more slayers would come. When he got back from the mission, the dragon slayer (who had a perfect record up to this point) was asked why his prey escaped, and he blamed it on Jack, claiming that Jack had cringed like a coward in order to save his own life instead of helping him fight the dragon. The reality being that Jack tried his best, but just couldn't really do that much; he tried to argue this point of view, and found that the people believed their beloved holy slayer over some random soldier. Jack was scorned and branded as an outcast, thrown out of the military and Ursian society in general for his cowardice and failure. Needless to say, this turn of events pissed Jack off quite a bit. While he considered going to that N-word country whose spelling I can't remember, his Ursian upbringing had still indoctrinated him well enough that he decided against it, unable to shake the belief that they were godless savages or however Ursians view them. As a result, he's spent the last five years as a merc/knight errant, running around and lending his weapon to whatever cause or paying hand he can find. This also conveniently leaves the more recent years of his life, and his current location and occupation, completely open to interpretation.

rofl 8 page sign ups topic and 13 post RP ftw wonder how long this new RP that's apparently pulling people away will last

oh, whoops, never mind me

is it ever going to start