Public Swift As A Coursing River: Bounty Hunter Boot Camp

[Malrok Duskwell]

MALROK DUSKWELL
⟁Tip the Scales⟁

The creature saw them.

Of course it did.

It had eight eyes and enough rage to power a siege. Noise wasn’t the cause, just the timing. The moment had arrived. Survival meant movement now.
Malrok moved in a tight forward arc, sprinting low across the jungle floor. The Rancodin’s torso began to pivot, heavy shoulders swinging, momentum building toward another charge. Its forelimbs dug for traction. The ground buckled.

He didn’t fight the beast.

He was the bait – he would distrupt its footing.

Malrok pivoted behind one of the fractured root-veins that split the clearing, reached to his belt, and drove a shockwire charge into the soil—hooking it into the root at shin height. He didn’t check to see if it would trip the creature. It probably wouldn’t. That wasn’t the point.

It would steer it.

The creature veered as its gait shifted—eye clusters adjusting, upper mass twisting toward the flash of Karesh’s voice. Perfect.

Malrok turned just slightly and pointed—not shouted—at the Rancodin’s left flank. Just a sharp, deliberate motion toward the exposed seam beneath its shoulder.

Then he held up two fingers. Not toward the monster.

Towards the others.
Then dropped one.

Strike Now.

He stayed low. The spear tip hummed with restrained tension, but he didn’t strike yet. This moment was for someone else. Someone louder. Someone faster.

He was just serting up the angle with the beast's softer underbelly.

Karesh Lachadann Rostam Khavarzai ​

 

[Diamond Dog]

It chewed through armor and bone like swampfruit rind. Blood spattered wet over the hanging vines. A shredded leg tumbled free from the beast’s maw and twitched once, still wearing half a boot.

That wasn't quite how Diamond Dog had imagined losing his leg for the first time. His imagination had involved a lot more running through fields. Maybe stepping on a personal mine while carrying a wounded comrade to safety under tense fire from Imperial guns. That had always made the heroes of those holo-war movies look super heroic.

The reality turned out to be a lot less heroism and a lot more razor-sharp teeth and getting swallowed almost-whole. If his system hadn't been completely flushed with pain-suppressants, supplemental adrenaline, and combat drugs he would have probably passed out instantly when the beast severed his leg. As it was, he was simply left to scream from the pain while he pondered how he ended up here.

The hunters outside might pick up some muffled noises coming from the beast's belly. That Rancodin had a pretty thick shell after all, and DD didn't exactly possess the voice of an opera singer.

Karesh Lachadann Rostam Khavarzai Malrok Duskwell

 

[Rostam Khavarzai]

Rostam waited as the beast closed in on the group. Malrok Duskwell stepped forward, seemingly drawing the creature's attention away from the others. It was a bold move, perhaps even calculated. Not a bad strategy. When Malrok raised two fingers, Rostam understood it was his cue to act. He did not wait for Karesh , Lachadann , or Diamond Dog , the latter of whom he had not yet noticed.

Drawing his plasma pike, the Night Wind assassin broke into a sprint, circling toward the beast's flank. In a fluid display of agility, he vaulted upward and landed atop the creature's back. Straddling the thick spine with one arm hooked around a jagged ridge for balance, he drove the tip of the plasma pike into the vulnerable gap between two of the beast's bone-plated armor segments. Though the thickest armor covered the spine and shoulders, Rostam had found a seam where the plates overlapped. He slid the energized blade into the gap and triggered the pike's electrical discharge. Arcs of blue energy surged into the creature's flesh, and with a twist, Rostam drove the weapon deeper, forcing the charge into its nervous system.