Allanea
05-04-2007, 16:48
Allanean New Jersey
The bear was only several meters away from him. Perhaps, pondered Ronald, it will notice me.
He brought his rifle to his shoulder, targetting the middle of the brown bear's head. A beginning of a careful smile began to form on Ronald's face as he saw the reticle crawl to meet the bear's skull. Okay then... now what remains is merely to pull the trigger... just like thiiis... and then it's head will just explo...
And then the bear charged. It was immense, and, as it ran-leaped the short distance between it and Ronald, it seemed only more immense. It was something like an Edolian tank, except with fur, claws, and teeth, and a horrible, hot, smelly breath that seemed to already be heating the skin on Ronald's face It seemed to be filling up the entire scope...
And then he did what came instinctively.
Ronald Anson Morell pulled the trigger.
The bear stopped momentarily, the sheer blunt force power of the .458 hollowpoint round holding it still in it's tracks for a fraction of a second.
Morell pulled the trigger again.
The bear roared, stepping on it's hind legs, defiant against the pain and power of the shots, againg the man that held the power to tear gaping holes in its living muscle like that. The animal was strong and proud.
And stupuid.
It should have gone on with the charge, Ronald later pondered. It could have torn me apart.
As it was, the bear gave Morell a chance for one last shot.
It's head jolted backwards on the neck, the left eye hit directly by the .458 round. A large, ragged hole appeared in the back of the animal's head, and there was a snapping noise as it's neck was broken by the sheer force of impact.
The bear was quite literally dead before it's body hit the ground.
Ronald din't feel particularly proud of the accomplishment – he had killed bigger bears before, with less shots.
However, it had been fun regardless.
And he had a neighbor who had always wanted a bear rug for her living room.
San Nereiana
The Waffen-Frankonia Favorit Super de Luxe rifle was lying on its rest, aimed already at the chosen target. The hunting scope was an Allanean Arms 'Argus', an enormous contraption done in dark, rough-looking steel to eliminate glint – the optics proper were ultra-thin and had reduced reflectivity, and at any rate they were still shielded by the front optic cover.
The hunter looked warily out into the distance, looking for any trace of movement on the wide plains of San Nereiana.
The spotter next to him smiled contentedly. “Merry, you don't need to be that tense. The fact that we haven't seen a single one yet does not mean that they will not arrive.”
“How are you sure? They're careful beasts, Mike.”
Mike shrugged, his happy smile becoming a wide grin. He was older then the hunter by about forty year, and it showed. He was never much a fan of youth treatments that made one look and feel sixteen. “It's my ranch, remember? I sometimes take a shot for the buggers myself, but just ain't so good with the rifle as guys like you are.“
“Aha.” - said Meriadoc Wendley-Holmes with little interest, opening the front optic cover and beginning to scan the plain by shifting the rifle's point-of-aim - “So what makes you so sure they're going to come out of their goddamn holes today?”
Mike broke into a laugh. “Possibly the fact they have already come out. Look right over there.”
And indeed there they were – about a furlong away from where Mike and Meriadoc were perched, stood, sat, and lay a variety of prairie dogs, exposed completely to Meriadoc's gun.
Now, Meriadoc was grinning too. His hand laying gently on the vertical adjustment screw of his rifle, he turned it slightly – only a single click was heard. Now, to move the rifle...
From the point of view of an external observer, Meriadoc was barely moving at all. The end of the Super De Luxe rifle's barrel shifted by perhaps a minute of angle – but the dot at the middle of the immense scope reticle shifted to the very middle of the prairie dog's tiny body. At this distance, most of the animal was obscured by the dot. Meriadoc adjusted some other control, and the dot became smaller.
The blades of low grass covering the ground between him and the tiny animal were barely moving. This meant that there was no wind – not just where Wednley-Holmes lay, but where the prairie dog was, too.
He lay his finger on the trigger. It broke cleanly, with only an ounce and a half of pressure.
And there was thunder.
The rifle was not designed for prairie dog hunting.
However, the .375 Holland and Holland cartridge proved quite adequate at this distance.
The hand-made bullet travelled down the barrel at four furlongs per second. Within about a quarter of a second the seventeen grams of lead, clad in less then half a gram of low-friction teflon coating, crossed the distance to the prairie dog and fed it a lethal dose of over four and a half thousand joules.
There was an audible ripping noise as the small animal was literally ripped apart by the impact.
Now, Meriadoc's grin was even bigger then Mike's.
By noon, he would have fired approximately a hundred and twenty rounds and killed seventy prairie dogs.
Deriksburg
Some people think there's nothing to hunt in a big city.
Emiel Nor knows them to be wrong. There are many things to hunt in the big city.
There are things which pose no immediate danger – cats in the streets and pigeonson the roofs. They pose no immediate danger – except, of course, a variety of diseases, fleas, and other discomforts for the citizens.
The pigeons are the most common problem – City Hall provides a Menelmacari Credit of reward for every dead pigeon's head. This is why Emiel Nor keeps a silenced EGM-1 Sport Special rifle – an Allanean clone of the Bavarian original - next to his bedroom window.
Every morning he checks for pigeons on the fire escape of the building across – and then takes a careful shot with his rifle It is near-impossible to catch a pigeon on the wing with a rifle – but a hollowpoint .22 LR does the job when they're sitting. Even if he misses, there's no chance of the round actually penetrating the heavy concrete wall behind. The silencer and the walls of his own room prevent any neighbors from even being alerted by the shooting – much less the pigeons. In fifteen minutes, he empties two magazines and kills at least five pigeons. It is then (normally) a simple matter to collect the bodies, either on the fire escape of the building in front or on the ground below.
Cooked, they will be a fine breakfast for Emiel's team of hunters before they confront the real issue of the day.
The team is simple of composition – Melinda, a feisty sixteen-year-old of mixed Edolian and Khristian blood, Moses, an old Kahanistani immigrant, and Tillion, a Sindar elf.
“Gentlemen, the issue of the day is rats. I understand from my sources in city halls that they've had spotted some really huge ones – like forty centimeters snout to tail – in an abandoned building in the eastern part of Lubbock County.”
“Hehehe. Giant homicidal mutant ninja rats from hell?”
“No. Just big. Though I think we may talk City Hall into giving us reward money later. We all know that's not the point.”
Everybody noted assent. Everybody in the South Deriksburg Urban Hunting Club had 'real jobs', except Melinda, who was still in school. Nobody was doing it for any reason except for the same reason other people hunted deer, prairie dogs, and elephants – for the sheer fun of it.
* * *
The immense wooden door creaked, budged, and then fell out as Moses' dark-blue pickup backed out, still attached to the door handle with a steel cable.
“There's no burglar's tool that can replace a pickup truck and a winch, but a pickup truck and a winch sure can replace a burglar and his tools.” - observed the elf as the group stepped closer to inspect the wreckage. Lying in the dust was the City Hall notice. This building is abandoned and condemned. None may enter without the proper authorization...
“Do we have proper authorization, Emiel?”
“Actually, we do, Melinda. I went to City Hall this morning and got it all.”
And then, something shifted in the darkness, and a pair of angry red eyes looked at them from the entrance to the building.
Melinda was fastest.
In a single, lightning motion, she drew her long-slide Teen Dream, racked the slide, centered the sights where the rat stood, and pulled the trigger, once.
The red lights went out.
And the building echoed the sound of the lone gunshot with a hurricane of squeaks – of thousands of rats disturbed in their sleep.
“Ears!” - screamed Emiel. Seconds later, all four wore sets of immense electronic headsets – advanced hearing protection devices that would muffle the roar of gunshots but let through the squeaking of the rats and Emiel's commands.
“Eyes!” - here went unbreakable shooter's glasses to shield the eyes from flying brass and wood splinters.
“Okay boys! It's party time!”
And they rushed in. First went Melinda, a pistol in one hand, a strobing digital flashlight in the other, the rats squeaking in terror when the two-hundred lumen light shone in their eyes.
Second followed Moses, carrying an AR-15 rifle with a red-dot scope and a tactical flashligh on the left of the barrel. As he entered, he swung it towards the aged, useless lamp that still hung from the ceiling, and fired thrice. Two immense rats fell to the floor like sacks of flour.
The elf came in next, pre-empting his arrival with two shots from his Auto-5, the ancient shotgun flinging the oversized rodents through the hall like soccer balls kicked by a Karela Lines sportsman.
The last was Nor himself. Aiming his Thompson M1928 into the mass of teeming grey creatures, he switched on first the immense flashlight attached to it – normally designed for blinding foxes – and then pulled the trigger.
And so it began.
It went on for hours. Others would have derided it as a senseless slaughter ofdozens, and then hundreds, of creatures whose only fault was being in the wrong place in the wrong time. Yet othes would have called it a necessary act, a sanitary purification to protect against horrendous diseases. For the members of the South Deriksburg Urban Hunting Club it was neither.
It was simply incredibly fun.
When the dawn broke, the back of Moses' truck was filled with dead rats and covered with cloth. It still dripped a small trail of rat blood behind it when it drove away.
OOC: Glimpse! Not Glimpes! Damn!
The bear was only several meters away from him. Perhaps, pondered Ronald, it will notice me.
He brought his rifle to his shoulder, targetting the middle of the brown bear's head. A beginning of a careful smile began to form on Ronald's face as he saw the reticle crawl to meet the bear's skull. Okay then... now what remains is merely to pull the trigger... just like thiiis... and then it's head will just explo...
And then the bear charged. It was immense, and, as it ran-leaped the short distance between it and Ronald, it seemed only more immense. It was something like an Edolian tank, except with fur, claws, and teeth, and a horrible, hot, smelly breath that seemed to already be heating the skin on Ronald's face It seemed to be filling up the entire scope...
And then he did what came instinctively.
Ronald Anson Morell pulled the trigger.
The bear stopped momentarily, the sheer blunt force power of the .458 hollowpoint round holding it still in it's tracks for a fraction of a second.
Morell pulled the trigger again.
The bear roared, stepping on it's hind legs, defiant against the pain and power of the shots, againg the man that held the power to tear gaping holes in its living muscle like that. The animal was strong and proud.
And stupuid.
It should have gone on with the charge, Ronald later pondered. It could have torn me apart.
As it was, the bear gave Morell a chance for one last shot.
It's head jolted backwards on the neck, the left eye hit directly by the .458 round. A large, ragged hole appeared in the back of the animal's head, and there was a snapping noise as it's neck was broken by the sheer force of impact.
The bear was quite literally dead before it's body hit the ground.
Ronald din't feel particularly proud of the accomplishment – he had killed bigger bears before, with less shots.
However, it had been fun regardless.
And he had a neighbor who had always wanted a bear rug for her living room.
San Nereiana
The Waffen-Frankonia Favorit Super de Luxe rifle was lying on its rest, aimed already at the chosen target. The hunting scope was an Allanean Arms 'Argus', an enormous contraption done in dark, rough-looking steel to eliminate glint – the optics proper were ultra-thin and had reduced reflectivity, and at any rate they were still shielded by the front optic cover.
The hunter looked warily out into the distance, looking for any trace of movement on the wide plains of San Nereiana.
The spotter next to him smiled contentedly. “Merry, you don't need to be that tense. The fact that we haven't seen a single one yet does not mean that they will not arrive.”
“How are you sure? They're careful beasts, Mike.”
Mike shrugged, his happy smile becoming a wide grin. He was older then the hunter by about forty year, and it showed. He was never much a fan of youth treatments that made one look and feel sixteen. “It's my ranch, remember? I sometimes take a shot for the buggers myself, but just ain't so good with the rifle as guys like you are.“
“Aha.” - said Meriadoc Wendley-Holmes with little interest, opening the front optic cover and beginning to scan the plain by shifting the rifle's point-of-aim - “So what makes you so sure they're going to come out of their goddamn holes today?”
Mike broke into a laugh. “Possibly the fact they have already come out. Look right over there.”
And indeed there they were – about a furlong away from where Mike and Meriadoc were perched, stood, sat, and lay a variety of prairie dogs, exposed completely to Meriadoc's gun.
Now, Meriadoc was grinning too. His hand laying gently on the vertical adjustment screw of his rifle, he turned it slightly – only a single click was heard. Now, to move the rifle...
From the point of view of an external observer, Meriadoc was barely moving at all. The end of the Super De Luxe rifle's barrel shifted by perhaps a minute of angle – but the dot at the middle of the immense scope reticle shifted to the very middle of the prairie dog's tiny body. At this distance, most of the animal was obscured by the dot. Meriadoc adjusted some other control, and the dot became smaller.
The blades of low grass covering the ground between him and the tiny animal were barely moving. This meant that there was no wind – not just where Wednley-Holmes lay, but where the prairie dog was, too.
He lay his finger on the trigger. It broke cleanly, with only an ounce and a half of pressure.
And there was thunder.
The rifle was not designed for prairie dog hunting.
However, the .375 Holland and Holland cartridge proved quite adequate at this distance.
The hand-made bullet travelled down the barrel at four furlongs per second. Within about a quarter of a second the seventeen grams of lead, clad in less then half a gram of low-friction teflon coating, crossed the distance to the prairie dog and fed it a lethal dose of over four and a half thousand joules.
There was an audible ripping noise as the small animal was literally ripped apart by the impact.
Now, Meriadoc's grin was even bigger then Mike's.
By noon, he would have fired approximately a hundred and twenty rounds and killed seventy prairie dogs.
Deriksburg
Some people think there's nothing to hunt in a big city.
Emiel Nor knows them to be wrong. There are many things to hunt in the big city.
There are things which pose no immediate danger – cats in the streets and pigeonson the roofs. They pose no immediate danger – except, of course, a variety of diseases, fleas, and other discomforts for the citizens.
The pigeons are the most common problem – City Hall provides a Menelmacari Credit of reward for every dead pigeon's head. This is why Emiel Nor keeps a silenced EGM-1 Sport Special rifle – an Allanean clone of the Bavarian original - next to his bedroom window.
Every morning he checks for pigeons on the fire escape of the building across – and then takes a careful shot with his rifle It is near-impossible to catch a pigeon on the wing with a rifle – but a hollowpoint .22 LR does the job when they're sitting. Even if he misses, there's no chance of the round actually penetrating the heavy concrete wall behind. The silencer and the walls of his own room prevent any neighbors from even being alerted by the shooting – much less the pigeons. In fifteen minutes, he empties two magazines and kills at least five pigeons. It is then (normally) a simple matter to collect the bodies, either on the fire escape of the building in front or on the ground below.
Cooked, they will be a fine breakfast for Emiel's team of hunters before they confront the real issue of the day.
The team is simple of composition – Melinda, a feisty sixteen-year-old of mixed Edolian and Khristian blood, Moses, an old Kahanistani immigrant, and Tillion, a Sindar elf.
“Gentlemen, the issue of the day is rats. I understand from my sources in city halls that they've had spotted some really huge ones – like forty centimeters snout to tail – in an abandoned building in the eastern part of Lubbock County.”
“Hehehe. Giant homicidal mutant ninja rats from hell?”
“No. Just big. Though I think we may talk City Hall into giving us reward money later. We all know that's not the point.”
Everybody noted assent. Everybody in the South Deriksburg Urban Hunting Club had 'real jobs', except Melinda, who was still in school. Nobody was doing it for any reason except for the same reason other people hunted deer, prairie dogs, and elephants – for the sheer fun of it.
* * *
The immense wooden door creaked, budged, and then fell out as Moses' dark-blue pickup backed out, still attached to the door handle with a steel cable.
“There's no burglar's tool that can replace a pickup truck and a winch, but a pickup truck and a winch sure can replace a burglar and his tools.” - observed the elf as the group stepped closer to inspect the wreckage. Lying in the dust was the City Hall notice. This building is abandoned and condemned. None may enter without the proper authorization...
“Do we have proper authorization, Emiel?”
“Actually, we do, Melinda. I went to City Hall this morning and got it all.”
And then, something shifted in the darkness, and a pair of angry red eyes looked at them from the entrance to the building.
Melinda was fastest.
In a single, lightning motion, she drew her long-slide Teen Dream, racked the slide, centered the sights where the rat stood, and pulled the trigger, once.
The red lights went out.
And the building echoed the sound of the lone gunshot with a hurricane of squeaks – of thousands of rats disturbed in their sleep.
“Ears!” - screamed Emiel. Seconds later, all four wore sets of immense electronic headsets – advanced hearing protection devices that would muffle the roar of gunshots but let through the squeaking of the rats and Emiel's commands.
“Eyes!” - here went unbreakable shooter's glasses to shield the eyes from flying brass and wood splinters.
“Okay boys! It's party time!”
And they rushed in. First went Melinda, a pistol in one hand, a strobing digital flashlight in the other, the rats squeaking in terror when the two-hundred lumen light shone in their eyes.
Second followed Moses, carrying an AR-15 rifle with a red-dot scope and a tactical flashligh on the left of the barrel. As he entered, he swung it towards the aged, useless lamp that still hung from the ceiling, and fired thrice. Two immense rats fell to the floor like sacks of flour.
The elf came in next, pre-empting his arrival with two shots from his Auto-5, the ancient shotgun flinging the oversized rodents through the hall like soccer balls kicked by a Karela Lines sportsman.
The last was Nor himself. Aiming his Thompson M1928 into the mass of teeming grey creatures, he switched on first the immense flashlight attached to it – normally designed for blinding foxes – and then pulled the trigger.
And so it began.
It went on for hours. Others would have derided it as a senseless slaughter ofdozens, and then hundreds, of creatures whose only fault was being in the wrong place in the wrong time. Yet othes would have called it a necessary act, a sanitary purification to protect against horrendous diseases. For the members of the South Deriksburg Urban Hunting Club it was neither.
It was simply incredibly fun.
When the dawn broke, the back of Moses' truck was filled with dead rats and covered with cloth. It still dripped a small trail of rat blood behind it when it drove away.
OOC: Glimpse! Not Glimpes! Damn!