Three Rocks Woods (Open)

[ObsideanWarrior]

The creatures did not pause, did not even give any indication that they understood what the women were saying. What they did do was to rip and tear at the womens' clothing--particularly the lower half of it. They did so with a speed and agility that belied their bestial, rough appearance, and with an utter disregard for whether or not the clothing would ever be wearable again. All while holding the two sorority sisters at knife-point.

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

It was a heartbeat before Lauren understood what the creature was doing, and another before she screamed again. She wrapped her hands around the clawed appendedge holding the knife at her throat, trying to keep it from slicing into her while her legs kicked furiously at the beast tearing at her clothing.

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea screamed loudly then kicked frantically while trying to worm her way out from under the monster. She kept hitting the creature in the head with the wrench, hoping it might fall back or run away. Her attempts seemed to be futile though. The creatures were not stopping the ruthless attack but Drea would not go down without a fight. "Lauren dont give up!!!"

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

Drea made more headway against the creature attacking her than Lauren did...until Drea's attacker slammed the wrench away in one massive swipe of his claws. Drea was the first to notice without a doubt that these creatures were not "its," but rather "hes." Under the greenskinned humanoid's loincloth, a tentpole was rising that could only mean one thing.

Blam! A loud report came from behind Lauren. Her attacker looked up, and she noticed a rapidly spreading stain of blood on his chest. Blam! Blam! The creature staggered back. As Drea looked up, a third of the skull of her attacker vanished into the night, and she was splattered with its blood.

Behind them, the women saw a man dressed in khaki pants and a well-worn shirt. He was holding a gun...a .44 Magnum, by the looks of it. "Come with me if you want to live. Come on! MOVE IT ladies!"

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

Lauren took a little comfort in her friend's voice. It encouraged her to find her strenghth and continue her struggles. She fought against the creature, her terror and the exhaustion of her limbs.

She screamed at the monster, demanding it release her, pleading that it stop.

She heard the report of a gun and the blood strain speading on the creatures chest she even saw the man with the gun but she was too stunned to move until he spoke.

"Come with me if you want to live. Come on! MOVE IT ladies!"

Never in her life has she moved so fast as when she jumped to her feet, checking for Drea and ready to follow him.

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea jumped up frantically and gathered what she could of her clothes then she ran to Lauren as concern for her dear friend showed in her eyes. " Lauren are you ok?!" She was panicked but managing to stay calm as she helped Lauren off the ground then she grabbed her arm and ran towards the man that had saved their lives. " Thank you so much. What were those things?!"

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

"Orcs, if you must know. But if we don't move our asses in ten seconds it won't matter. Forget your clothes and MOVE. This ain't the dressing room at Neiman-Marcus." The man had opened the revolver and was putting in more bullets, even as he moved toward the bush, away from the sound of the horn, about to leave the women behind.

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea quickly caught up the man and followed him quietly while keeping a tight grip on Laurens arm. " Orcs? We are in the middle of a fucking city.......and Orcs arent real........." She was trying to convince herself of that as she spoke it but for some reason she believed this man. "Are you ok Lauren?" Drea looked back at her friend with a small smile. They were ok for now and they had survived this long so they must be doing ok.

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

Lauren nodded, her voice detatched and quiet.

"Yes, Orcs. Of course." She nodded again, "We should go home, Drea. Jenny's joke isn't funny anymore."

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

The man hustled the women along--however fast they moved, he urged them to move faster still. "I'm gonna sum this up for you Dorothys...Kansas has gone bye-bye." His voice was quiet, insistent, as they moved quickly across the scrub, toward a treeline about a quarter-mile away. "This is another world. The Three Rocks Woods...is some kind of gateway. That's why people get lost." He looked behind him. "You ever hear about people disappearing? Strange shit? Well, welcome to Oz."

"Oh, I'm Trent. Nice to meet you. Assuming we're still alive ten minutes from now, I can tell you more. You want to move faster. Because if you knew what orcs do to women, you'd want the gun to use on yourselves...like that happy asshole back there who thought the wargs were big game and decided to go hunting."

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea looked at Trent and nodded slightly as she moved Lauren along faster, "Lauren I dont think this is part of Jennys joke. I think this is for real. Jenny isnt smart enough to stage this......" She glanced around some then her finger slipped into the back belt loop of Trents pants. Drea wasnt going anywhere and she certainly wasnt going to get left behind.

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

Lauren isn't listening to him. She can't listen, she can't hear this, she doesn't want to know. She simply follows as fast as she can, with each urgent prod she tries harder to move faster. With her eyes constantly on Drea, she moves along.

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

Trent shepherds the women along, reaching a creek. "We're going to go through here because it will throw the wargs off your scent." He forges ahead, splashing into the water, wading through it, coming out the other side about a hundred yards downstream. The forest was just beyond. After coming out, the man led Drea and Lauren into the foliage, around and up a rock outcropping to a ledge.

"We can stop here...for now."

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

Lauren looks to Drea, "Are you ok, hun? It didnt...ya know, right?"

Then she looks to the strange man, Trent... he said his name was.
"Thank you... we saw a man and a woman before we...were attacked, do you know what happened to them? I'm not quite sure I understand, any of this."

She runs her fingers through her hair, a face a mask of barely controlled terror.

 

[ChaosDAmore]

After crossing the stream and meeting Trent on the other side, they finally got to rest. Drea looked at Lauren and nodded some, "Yeah Im fine. Are you ok? Lauren you need to calm down. Walking around with a clouded head isnt going to help this situation." She hugged her best friend then walked over to the man named Trent. " Thank you so much for helping us............How long have you been here?"

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

Trent was only a little winded from the run, so he spoke in that same low, urgent voice. Overhead, the moon--not the moon, some alien moon--was high in the southern sky.

"I'm Trent Laynard. USGS. That's short for United States Geologic Survey. How long have I been here? I don't even know where "here" is. It's a long ways from home, I can tell you that much. Look around at the stars...if you see a constellation you recognize, I'll give you a Kewpie doll. Sunrise is a real treat, because it happens twice. Binary system. One large primary, approximately G6, and one red dwarf, approximately M something or the other. You'll notice the light looks a little more yellow, and sunburn takes about twice as long as it does on Earth.

"I got sent to the Three Rocks Woods because some aviators were reporting magnetic anomalies. Yeah, there were some major fucking anomalies all right. I saw a flash of light, and the next thing I know, here I was. I'm glad I pack this piece, because an orc raiding party was nearby. Don't ask me where the orcs come from. Like I said, this isn't Earth. But apparently evolution favors the bipedal form, because this place has humans too. The man and woman you encountered, for starters."

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea listened to the man in utter disbelief but it was almost making sense to her now. Almost........it still didnt seem right. She was almost half expecting to hear the twilight zone theme start to play in the background and everything fade to black. " Hum..........That just seems impossible but apparently its not." Drea turned to Lauren and watched her for a moment. She was really worried about Lauren, she wasnt her usual calm self. Drea needed her to be calm because Drea was about to explode with terror.

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren Cabot

Lauren thinks for a moment as her brain finally finds its footing and chooses a course. She need information and he is the only one who has it.

"How long before you run out of ammunition? Do you have provisions, additional weapons, a safe place to hide?"

"More importantly, do you have a plan and what can we do to help?"

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

Trent seemed impressed with Lauren's thinking. "I've got six rounds in the gun, and fourteen rounds in my pouch here. I have a bow-and-arrow back at my hideout. Guess my days in the SCA helped out more than any of the geology courses I took. As far as getting back, I've been back--twice. Couldn't stay there. For some reason, I just couldn't escape whatever--field provides the gate between worlds.

"As you figured out, I think, nothing electronic works here. I'm not sure why. Firearms work fine. Explosives...during one of the times I got back, I made it as far as the grocery store, got myself the fixings for nitroglycerin, as well as more ammo. For some reason it's been harder and harder to sync. Snyc--that's my word for when Earth and whatever this place is line up and I can get across. Once I found myself in the middle of a forest. The second time, I appeared downtown. I had about twenty minutes. I focused on buying as many supplies as I could. Cleaned out the store's ammo supply."

 

[ChaosDAmore]

Drea nodded some and looked at the man then back at her friend. " Alright sounds like we are good on ammo for a little bit but we should probably be moving by now. Im sure they have probably picked up our scent by now." She looked around some and shook her in disbelief

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

She nods as he speaks...

"Guns, ammunition and explosives but not electronics work. Mechenical and chemical reactions remain consistant and presumably physics... Radioactivity, electro-magnetic...."

Drea nodded some and looked at the man then back at her friend. " Alright sounds like we are good on ammo for a little bit but we should probably be moving by now. Im sure they have probably picked up our scent by now." She looked around some and shook her in disbelief

"Drea is right" She smiles at her friend, "I can think out this later. What do we do first?"

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

"First, we wait for the raiding party to move on. You see, the orcs and humans are enemies here. There's a war, and the humans are catching the worst of it. To the orcs, the humans are just slaves and breeding stock. The humans here haven't invented firearms yet. If I could find a way to control the sync...well, I've got some Army buddies who would love a chance to live in a place like this. This world is as beautiful as it is deadly. From where we're sitting, you can see twenty miles. No smog. Water you find, you can drink. There's plenty of game...where the orcs haven't hunted, at least.

"But this place is deadly. There are some beasties here that either died out on Earth a long time ago, or never existed. There's a variant of the dire wolf, called wargs. They're the size of a large horse, and almost as intelligent as a chimpanzee. The orcs use them as mounts. I've seen wooly mammoths.

"But we're safe here for now. The orcs don't like these rocks...and they're primarily interested in raiding the human town to our southeast. You and Mr. Eddie Bauer there were just targets of opportunity. Near as I can tell, the orc strategy is to drive the humans from their fields...and breed them out."

 

[ChaosDAmore]

"Breed them out? That sounds absoluetly lovely." Drea managed to crack a smile and shake her head slightly. " What language do they speak? Do you know? It sounded almost like a derived version of French. Something to tat effect." She walked around the rocks thinking some and waiting for some kind of plan to come to her head.

 

[impish_pixie]

Lauren

Lauren looks to Drea and smiles, "We are two smart, educated, strong-willed and healthy women, we will deal with this to the best our abiliities, using all of our skills and talents, until we can find a way out of here."

"And then you will make a fortune writing the book and selling the movie rights."

 

[ObsideanWarrior]

"Could be some variant of French. For all I know, there are other places on Earth with a similar gateway. No shortage of stories about missing people. The Bermuda Triangle, for starters. To know for sure we'd have to bring in a linguist and have him or her interview the people and see. I've only met locals from here twice. There's not much I can do for them...even if I tried to enter the battle, I'm just one man with a revolver. They need the 82nd Airborne.

"But I do have some suspicions. I'm pretty sure you and I are not the first people to end up here. What came of the others, or who they were, I have no idea. Maybe their ancestors produced the human settlement, who knows? I haven't been able to get in close enough to see things like architecture, flags, or anything else like that. And even if I could...well, I'm not a lexillogist. I wouldn't know what flag came from where, unless they were flying the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, or something like that."