Iria finds herself smiling a little with Jerick-O's suggestion. Usually she's the one asking for some cover, like she has to point out the fact enemies tend to swarm towards her. But maybe Jerick-O's done this kind of thing before, which makes her feel a bit more at ease. With something of a surprised look, her gaze moves to Damagi when she makes it an order. Iria shrugs her slim shoulders and looks back towards Jerick-O
"Well sure, I'm more than fine if someone wants to take a hit for me." She says with a nod.
When Damagi speaks of the Predators being tricky, Iria says softly to herself
"Yautja". As if to correct Damagi without Damagi actually hearing her. But her mentioning how clever they are, it makes Iria remember something. She opens her inventory as Damagi checks her messages, and she speaks in a light tone, addressing the group.
"We do have a good group. I kind of wish we could do some training runs together, but I don't think we have time. A few more parties have come and gone from Yautja Prime. According to my search algorithems… no one's bagged a Yautja there yet. So…" she closes her inventory as she smiles a little to the group "We may have to improvise a bit. Just go with your gut feeling, and watch each other's backs."
And when it's announced they won't have a tracker (she assumes that's what Damagi means), she opens her IU menu again to do some more searches quickly. She looks at her friends list… and the small handful of names on it. She finds herself frowning a little as she stares at 5P1D3R's name. She knows he's leveled some tracking skills with his Ranger build. But she doesn't want to ask him, or bother him. She sees he's online.. but has his status as 'Do Not Disturb'. Iria frowns a little more. Her eyes look towards Jerick-O, and she closes her UI absently.
Life sucks.
She is watching Jerick-O, and then she looks towards the others of the group. Herak, W3ndy and Dante. They seem really cool. But she knows this is just a PUG. A pick up group. Just random people getting together for a singular goal. Such groups are usually one and done. Which she hates. Maybe it won't happen this time.. but it will. She knows it.
Iria jumps a little when she hears her name, and her wide eyes look towards Damagi.
"Whawha?" And then she remembers that yes she did have something she wanted to point out.
"Oh! Oh oh oh" She says as she opens her inventory. Her fingers dance across the invisible screen (invisible to everyone else of course), and she moves closer to a near booth. Next to her, a small disc shaped device materializes. It's white in color, and just hovers there a moment. Iria reaches up and unscrews the lightbulb above the booth, and as she does the disc shaped device seems to unfold.
Thin legs and arms stretch out under it, and a single softly glowing eye materializes. It lets out a series of delighted beeps and squeels, and does a little spin. As if wanting to show off. Iria smiles widely as she motions to the small droid.
"Everyone, this is one of my little buddies. Artemis. Artemis, this is Jerick-O, Herak, W3ndy and Dante. They're our pals, kay?" She says as she looks towards the droid. It lets out an affirmative beep, it's glowing eye looking towards Damagi as it lets out a sour sounding whirring sound towards her. It's not that Artemis dislikes Damagi.. Damagi just has a very… powerful… personality.
"Focuse Artie, please." the droid's gaze snaps back to Iria as it beeps once more.
"Please play folder 'WhyPrimeFirstHuntPartyDownfallSentryDroids' starting at 70% please." Iria likes to get very specific with her filenames. The droid lets out an affirmative beep, and it's eye starts to glow a little more brightly. It then projects what looks like a television screen for them all to see. Which is why she unscrewed the lightbulb a little. Iria now moves a little from the booth as she speaks.
"So this is a pretty popular recording right now. It's the first group to get to Yautja Prime. There's 3 of 'em… Nak3dBob, xXanderXx and TinkTank. I don't know they're exact levels, but they are really strong. So this is them landing…" the screen shows the dropship from Aliens descending to the surface of the planet, and setting down.
"So.. this part is boring. And most everyone just forwards to the meaty stuff. Because all this part shows is them landing, disembarking and walking to where their camp is. So forwardforward… " The video now speeds forward, quickly moving to the group of 3 taking equipment into the jungle area and setting up a camp.
"Okay stop." The video pauses a moment, and then plays in normal speed. On the screen, Nak3dBob is seen setting up 7 perimeter guns.
"So this is kind of smart. He has those 7 sentry droids, all of them in a circle around their camp. Pointed outwards. Nothing bigger than a deer can approach them without them knowing an probably getting shot to pieces. Which is good in this case." She glances at the group, and speaks in a sudden softly, apologetic tone.
"Sorry if this is boring.. just wanna be thorough with you guys.." She then looks back to the video, taking a deep breath before she continues.
"So xXanderXx is a melee damage dealer, Nak3dBob is a ranged damage dealer, TinkTank is the tank. Complete with forcefields and autohealing and regeneration. Like I said.. they are a darn strong group." She now steps back as the video now shows Nak3dBob speaking into the camera, grinning widely under his mask. The audio comes on.
"Hour 14 of our Predator raid! We're gonna get some food, and then head out for the hunt!" Iria glances to the group
"Yeah, this video is about 15 hours long. Pretty sure that's most of the reason everyone forwards to this point." She then looks back to the video, and over Nak3dBob's shoulder.. they can see the very large TinkTank start to push himself to his feet hurriedly… and then his chest just explodes into a hundred pixelated pieces. Nak3dBob spins around, and suddenly right next to the fallen Tank… a very large Yautja hunter. His cloak falls, electrical energy dancing along his form. He pulls the spear from TinkTank, and he disintegrates into a thousand glowing pieces… along with his credits and equipment. xXanderXx calls out to the Yautja as she dashes towards it. Nak3dBob starts to power up his weapons as he speaks in a panicked tone.
"How the fuck did it get passed out sentry drones?! That isn't possible!" Iria sighs as she crosses her arms over her midsection, looking discretely away from the video. xXanderXx actually holds her own for a few moments, getting in some brutal hits in on the Yautja.
This isn't how Nak3dBob had planned it. Things are falling apart, and he doesn't know how to react.
The Yautja makes a loud clicking sound as it grabs xXanderXx's hand right out of the air as she jabs at him, and he flings her towards Nak3dBob. Just as he was firing. She cries out as she is almost instantly deleted from Nak3dBob's energy attack. Nak3dBob curses loudly, and the Yautja is suddenly on him. Iria looks back towards the video quickly, her eyes wide.
"Okay.. okay… almost…" the Yautja jabs it's arm blades through Nak3dBob's neck, and his form slowly disintegrates. "Okay, here here! Listen listen!" Iria says excitedly. The camera feed starts to get static as the Yautja stands slowly, a low growling tone heard from him.
'Lead you astray'
The video pauses, showing the large, muscular outline of the Yautja. Iria points at it as she speaks excitedly.
"So so so no one wants to go there, cause everyone thinks the devs gave the Yautja a weapon that's not in the canon. Everyone thinks that Yautja got passed the sentry guns with some kind of advanced cloak or something, right?" She says as she looks towards the others.
Since she started, she hasn't really shut up long enough for anyone to ask questions. Sometimes once she does start, she doesn't slow down. Because she's afraid she'll lose her train of thought midstream.
"But that's not what happened. That's not how the Yautja got passed their defenses, how it got passed their sentries." She motions to her little droid.
"Okay Artemis, back to them disembarking." The image goes black, and then a paused image of their ship. And the trio coming down the ramp.
"Like I said.. everyone skips this part. Cause it's 14 hours of listening to that jerk bragging and telling his pals how cool he is and how they're gonna be the first to win. But when people skip over this part.. they miss this!" She motions to Artemis, and the video image starts once more. Small talk, xXanderXx expressing doubts about whether or not this is a good idea. And then Nak3dBob declares proudly (arrogantly)
"zan m'dear. I have never lead you astray, right? Truuuuust me! We're gonna be famous!"
With wide eyes Iria looks to the rest of the group, pointing excitedly at the video as it pauses again.
"That! That! The Yautja heard him say that… and then repeated it when he beat them! So that means… the moment they landed… the Yautja was right on top of them! He heard that… shadowed them to their camp… and was IN their camp when they set up the sentries! That's how it got passed them! He was never in front of them, he was always behind the sentries with the rest of them! But it's kind of dark, so they couldn't see the Yautja. They didn't even think to look, cause that's not how dungeons usually work. You set up camp, get prepared and then go do your quest. But here… the moment you break atmosphere, I think you're tagged... you're hunted." She says proudly, looking to Damagi.
"That's why they were beat so easy. The Yautja outsmarted them. It doesn't behave like normal NPC mobs. These things are… different." She says with a nod, a little bit of worry in her voice.