Post #2684845 in The Vladimir, a roleplay on RPG

Nico almost jumped as the doctor appeared, answering her salutation with a quick nod. He had been so absorbed by the possibilities of the captain's discovery, he'd not noticed her approaching.

“Mind letting us in on your discovery then, Celcius?”

"I believe it's a scale!"

"A scale?" So far up? Nico placed his scalpel and the sample he had taken inside his pack. "A type of lizard, perhaps?"

In which case, he thought, the size offered considerable reason to be worried. Perhaps they were landed on a planet of huge lizardmen, a concept he was only vaguely familiar with– he seemed to remember something of the kind in an old horror movie. He was about to speak when the captain continued her climb, but held his tongue at the risk of sounding like a worried mother. The android probably had functions far beyond his imagination– it wasn't his place to tell her what to do.

And then he heard the sound– the creaking of movement through the forest, plants bending in the wake of something large. It moved slow, deliberate but clumsy by the sounds of things. The captain was before him in a flash, high-tailing towards the source of the sound.

"C-captain," he began, "maybe we should wait for–" he stopped himself, getting a fillet knife from his pack. He was on a mission, now. No time for cowardice.

He'd barely taken a step after Celcius before Brax arrived. He must have seen her go from the ship, for the man seemed worried to say the least– Nico couldn't blame him. As much as he admired the captain's spirit, he was happy not to be charged with keeping her alive.

"I saw the Captain bookin' it into the wilderness, there were no signs of danger right?"

"Um, there was a worrying sound, just now," Nico said, but was at a loss for words when it came to explaining it.

"If you two are coming it'd be wise to stay close to me."

"Right behind you." Nico clutched his fillet knife close and walked a small distance behind Brax– probably disappearing with his small frame, and unable to see until the man stopped. Nico avoided crashing into his back by a millisecond, and carefully poked his head around to see what everyone was staring at.

"Captain! Stay back!"

It could be a mullet, though it was hard for him to see from his position and there was no way of ascertaining without getting a closer look at the fins. He probably had a book of the different traits somewhere. It could also be a perch-like: a family of fish mostly recognisable by their lack of definable traits and thusly just another way of saying he had no fucking clue. The fact of the matter it was huge, even by ocean-creature standards, which was not at all helped by the fact that it was somehow swimming through the air. He also noted the presence of orange dots– the nature of which was unknown. A food of some kind?

The underbite reminded him of a catfish, but the head was far too small and delicate where a catfish would have a rounded, compact skull. That being said, a normal salmon would have quite the underbite, but would usually be more slender in build than the monstrosity before him. His closest call at the top of his head and without a close inspection of the fins would be sooty grunter, a fish that rarely appeared in day-to-day conversation, especially since it was a freshwater fish, and mostly stuck in his mind because of the name.

Heh. Sooty. He tried to remember if it was particularly tasty, but freshwater fish generally was an acquired taste. Hopefully nobody on board had a seafood allergy. In short, it was impossible to say for certain whether the giant was edible.

"I don't think it notices us. We should move away from it before it does, Captain."

"If I may interject," Nico said, trying to speak low although he doubted the fish would care much for them. "I would at least not recommend shooting it, captain, at the risk of spoiling the taste. I may have a harpoon hidden away somewhere."

He paused.

"You know. For cooking," he added.

Snippet #2684845

located in Elmers, a part of The Vladimir, one of the many universes on RPG.

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