Training - (Closed/Those four people I talked to before.)

(temp thing until I acquire sweggy template: STATS: +2 STR, +1 END, +1 DEX, 932 Words)

There was certainly nothing like a nice little stroll through the forest, for no particular reason, to get one's mind off of stressful matters, like dealing with peasants and people trying to take her hacksilver, whether through begging, or sales, or mugging. Seriously, it would be nice if everybody realized that the tycoon could pinch a penny, or in this case, a pound of silver, so hard she'd leave an imprint of her fingers. Which would probably be pretty helpful for maintaining claim on her cash, and identifying it when stolen. Not a bad idea. She wrote it on a waiter's pad and chucked it back into her coat pocket. See? This walk was already relieving stress. Such tranquility did her well, and she closed her eyes to picture what today's fortunes would bring. Somewhere in the back of her mind, memories of her life flashed by.

Images of her headquarters, in the capital... Her loyal subjects/customers paying her money daily for high-quality products... Protestors trying to convince people that her pudding was addictive... Her loyal legionnaires massacring said protestors, as a warning to dissenters. Ah, yes... Those were the glory days, before her assassination. She could even think back to her first cash register. It made such a pretty dinging sound when she opened it to scam some suckers out of their hard-earned dough.

Ding... Ding... Ding... DiCRASH... DiBOOM... TREEng...

Oh, what now?

She glanced up, her ears flicking back in annoyance as she sought out the disturbance, soon locating a woman who was... Kicking the shit out of some trees, it seemed. Not exactly a normal hobby, but hey, this was the afterlife. Great melting pot of freaks and circus acts, as well as the more civilized and proper warriors such as herself. If kicking trees was this chick's thing, it wasn't up to the pink-haired animu cat thing to stop her. And so Valdís just kinda stood back and observed. She was awfully fast and pretty strong. And clearly kicking the shit out of some trees, as noted before. Hm. Perhaps with a bit more experience in the affairs of being dead, the pudding queen would be equally capable of kicking through trees and the like, preferably while flipping them off and shouting "FUCK YOU, YOU XYLOPHONIC JERKS," or something of that ilk. For now, she'd have to settle for seeing the professional do it.

But of course, it would be pretty creepy if she just kinda stood there, watching the girl punt down a forest, seemingly secluded in the forest. Or well, creepy after like, five minutes of silent observation. That was basically like a rule of social conduct or something. Thou shalt not stare at some random floozy kicking trees like a champion kickboxer, at least not in excess of five minutes. She couldn't argue with that. It was the law. Thems the rules and such.

Of course, she did eventually speak up, after said five minutes, throwing a casual remark to the wannabe lumberjack. "So, having fun, are we? Them trees do anything to you, or do you just not like them on principle?" She leaned against a tree, her small frame easing cozily against the curvature of the large birch as she brought up a foot to rest on the bark behind her, crossing her arms over her chest. It was a pretty overdone standard coolkid pose, but she didn't care, because she could rock it like it was her own creation. "Valdís, by the way, Valdís Raghild Heldätter." Saying nothing else, she flicked her tail side to side a few times, lazily lounging against the tall piece of nature's furniture. Quickly tiring of that, she stood straight again and walked over to a smaller tree, sizing it up. Not quite on the training girl's level yet, in terms of strength, though still a nice bit above average, she figured it wouldn't take too many hits to fell the thing.

Drawing back her fist, she swung a hard left to the bark, resulting in quite a decent crack and the splintering of bark and bits of wood alike. Her knuckles a bit sore from the impact, she nonetheless went at it again, with a right jab, aiming for the same spot. The crack deepened as more wood bits were sundered. Well, this was pretty entertaining, in retrospect. Who'd have thought punching trees could actually be an entertaining thing ow splinter between knuckles. With a slight twitch of her nose, an irate viking warrior triumphantly unsheathed the tiny sliver of wood from between her middle and ring fingers' knuckles. She could deal with all manner of stab wounds, bruises, and at least twice, gunshots, but splinters were always the most irritating and persistent, to her. It was probably because trees are dicks. Just look at them, their clear phallic symbolism made it obvious that they were dicks. Dicks made of splinters.

A few more punches and, indeed, the tree didn't really want to fall, and then she was bored again. Wow, she had a very short attention span. Probably something to do with being partially a cat, cats aren't really known for being very attentive to tasks that no don't keep them interested. And so she retreated back to her former position at the larger tree, to watch the other tree-slayer at work. Eh. If she'd really wanted to knock the tree down, she could've hit harder. That chick must really not like trees.

"What a pain..." A redheaded teen with a gravely voice sluggishly made his way around the trees and foliage of the forest, his green outfit ripped in various places. He'd get the three who'd dragged him out here back eventually... somehow... maybe... Actually it'd be useless to even try. Out of everyone in Asgard, Roku was quite possibly the weakest. That's probably why he was so easy to trick into this "hunting trip" the other three boys had promised while bringing him through the Entertainment District. Usually he would have declined right away, but the prospect of being lead through and gaining some power from just being there was too great. In the end the others had just beaten him up, left him tied to a tree, and taunted him with tales of a serial killer who supposedly roamed this place looking for unsuspecting teenagers to slay before running off.

Hearing what seemed like a fight going on, the boy jumped in fright, ducking for cover within a bush. He poked his head out nervously, gazing out on the going's on, only to find that... Some people were fighting trees for whatever reason. Wait, was that even productive in the slightest? Could be like that eyebrow guy, simply doing endurance training, but they didn't really have the looks of any sort of martial artists. He crawled his way out from the bushes and slowly jogged over, probably seeming like a complete weirdo with his clothes torn up as he raised a hand in a half-wave before stopping.

"Uh, what's up? You guys trying to get some apples to fall down or something?" He looked up into the branches, noticing the trees weren't even fruit-bearing, "Or... not. Okay, what exactly are you even doing?" He stopped as he heard the other redhead's comment, looking down at his hands.

"Nah, I've died plenty of times, I always come back with the same body completely healed though." Roku rubbed beneath his nose with his sleeve to wipe away a bit of blood that began to trickle down. Maybe it wasn't the wisest move to make it known how easily he'd found dying to be here. It didn't really matter much though, he was probably destined to lose this game anyway. Then maybe he could rest in peace like he was supposed to, this entire thing was just a drag. All that work being put into just making sure he stayed at the same three souls he started with, it was definitely more than he'd prefer.

"Uhh... Anyway, my name's Rokuro Hasukara, but my friends call me Roku. Or, they would if I had any." The Loser gave a nervous chuckle and scratched the back of his neck. This was probably going to either be extremely awkward or he was going to die. Or both.

(STATS: +2 STR, +1 END, +2 MAG, +1 DEX, 687 Words)

Valdis' ears perked up slightly as she smiled, feeling quite accomplished with this feat of socializing that she had done just then. "Well, I suppose that makes sense, haha. The pleasure is mutual, Gem." It was pretty nice to see that the girl before her was capable of communicating in manners other than kicking. While kicking was a fantastic form of language, good old conversation whatwith the words and the talking and the hey hey what what was a timeless classic. Or well, was until the advent of all kinds of high-tech devices and stuff. It still mildly amused the feline that there were some here who had never even contemplated the thought of a hologram, let alone used them in daily business. Her planet was just so much more sophisticated than most of these peasants. Speaking of which, here come a few now, she thought to herself, in her vastly superior little kitty cat brain.

The first to arrive was some guy in an admittedly decent vest, but otherwise nothing else giving off any semblance of wealth, or even of serviceability. At least Gem's boots and such looked functionally useful and pretty cool. He just looked kinda drab, to the monopolistic little tyrant. Nevertheless, she smiled pleasantly at him. "Masochism usually makes for fun tree-kicking parties, I'd say. Though I, personally, just chanced by and decided, hey, why not? I could always kill some time punching trees while I wait for my tons of hacksilver to arrive at my office. You may not be aware, but I am, hehe, considerably wealthy. Doesn't matter whether it's life or the afterlife, profit is always the main objective. Food for thought, yaknow?" Ahh, it did her heart good to enlighten some random guy about the joys of being rich.

The second of the two newcomers made his presence known, then, answering an unspoken question of the first. In a somewhat pitiful manner, actually, she almost felt a pang of sympathy for the poor guy. But not really, pffft. Dying wasn't really her schtick; she was a warrior, and that was more her cup of tea than getting axed constantly. Fortunately for his dignity, Gem reiterated his point in a much less sad and pathetic manner. "Yep, yep, they're both correct; your body here pretty much keeps itself intact so you won't have to worry about being assassinated in a hospital bed or something. A lot more convenient than y'know. Being assassinated on a hospital bed." Unfortunately, this was pretty much what happened to Valdis. She preferred not to mention such dishonorable things.

So instead, she focused on Roku, as his name was, it seemed. He looked... Well, to be honest, he looked like a school kid. Uniform was wrinkly and in less than optimal shape, however, so she guessed that, despite the slightly wealthier look of such clothing, in general. Not to mention he seemed absolutely terrified of a rather friendly girl, herself, being literally a small woman with fluffy pink cat ears, and a guy who could pass for a homoerotic swimsuit model. "Ya look a little tense, Roku. Pretty sure nobody here's out to get you. Not to my knowledge, anyways. Lighten up, guy. Name's Valdís." Aw man, wait no, she had casually used his shortened first name, that was definitely some sign of the human emotion called friendship, an emotion that she hadn't particularly wanted to display to him. Curses. Well, now she supposed she sounded a lot friendlier than intended; quite a striking contrast to her ordinarily ruthless manners. Ahh well, at least he was unlikely to ruin her reputation, whatwith being obviously poor and the exact opposite of influential and all. No harm done, really.

"So this is a strange coincidence. Four people meet up in the forest, out of the blue. Kinda funny, eh?" Kinda funny, indeed. She could only imagine what sort of things were likely soon to follow, and most of them were pretty awkward conversations. Who knew, though, maybe some form of action besides punching trees would come up?

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“ Though I'm sure you've never had that happen to you before

Blake was truly beginning to grow irritated with his girl. With the way she flaunted her money around, it was a wonder she hadn’t been perma-killed yet. She was cute, he had to admit, with the whole cat-thing going on, but her arrogance was nothing of the sort. What was rather cute, was the way both of the girls babied the other red head. It was rather sickening to watch them all, though it was rather sweet that they were concerned over whether or not the man died on their little get together. With Blake’s limited endurance, as well as his speed, he was somewhat jealous of Roku’s treatment, but would never voice such. He was spacing out about this, simply watching the others when he felt the brown-haired girl step up to him and hold something out to him.

"I'm Gem, in case you didn't hear it before. Here, you can have it too, the more the-"

Blake took the card, glancing down at his hands as he did. He wasn’t expecting that, as most people didn’t feel like conversing with him. It was probably his own rudeness, paired up with his inability to socialize with most people. “Thanks. I’m Blake.” He mentioned, pocketing the card just moments before Valdís tossed a much fancier card towards him. Of course it would be coated in silver and gold. He’d expected nothing less from the neko. With traces of a little grin on his face, he then glanced up at Gem, pocketing the silver card. The grin didn’t last long, though, as he noticed the silence in the air. “Wait, what is it? Why’d you stop tal-”

There was no way. This was some sort of movie-style coincidence. There was no fucking way. A group of random people meet up and punch trees for “practice” before being suddenly attacked by walking trees? “Oh.” Blake withdrew the pistols from their holders on his hips, taking a defensive pose as he did so. He’d never punched a tree before, let alone fought a “living” one. To be honest, Blake had actually never been in a real fight here before. Sure, he’d fought on Earth, but never here. He figured whimpering and whining about his lack of skill could help, but he wasn’t about to stoop to Roku’s pitiful level. He was weak, but he wasn’t a loser.

Hands shaking, Blake took aim, though he waited. He wasn’t going to be the hero here. He’d not lost a life yet and preferred to keep it that way. He’d let someone else take the first shot, so they could make the tree-creatures mad. Blake knew he wasn’t strong enough to take the creatures face-on, but could do more damage from a hiding place with the ranged weapons. “I’m beginning to understand the benefits in training to punch trees.

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