An Elven community located at the base of the Eastern most part of the Bear's Teeth, this community aptly named for both the secretive nature of its people as well as the quite plentiful mountain stream which runs through it, is one of few places in this region with natural caverns. While most native ore is abundant in other areas of the mountain range, it is their mineral mines which keep them connected to the world via merchants and passers by. Stealing as is with most communities is rather frowned upon, however it isn't unheard of that those who've attempted the act left their sword hand in the company of the residents of Hushed Stream.
As the carriage continued down the dirt pathway through the forest, it hit a small pothole, shaking its contents and startling the now awake Arran. With one hand hovering over the hilt of his sword, Arran's eyes began to dart around the interior of the carriage. His mind began to process where he was and what he was doing, causing him to relax once more and slink back into the cushioned seats of the carriage. Bringing his free hand up, Arran knocked on the wall behind him, prompting the man driving the carriage to slide open a small hatch that allowed him to peer into the carriage's interior. With a chuckle the man glanced in through the small window, "That woke ya, did it? Sorry 'bout that. But we're nearin' your stop. Should be 'nother minute or two." the man with the muttonchops stated, before returning his eyes to the road in front of him. Arran simply nodded his head as began adjusting the crimson coloured cloth wrapped around his face, making sure it was tight enough to cling to his head but not tight enough to cut off air flow.
With only a little time left before he had to return to the task at hand, Arran took the chance to reflect on what had brought him here in the first place. Having been wandering for so long, he eventually found himself on a ferry to another continent, in hopes of finding riches and adventure. All he found there were the same things he had enough of in Vasilikan: Brutes, beasts, disease and a few crazies. Arran had felt as though he was stuck in a rut, that was until he stumbled across a clan of elves that required his services. Well, more like he imposed himself upon them. Apparently some relic of theirs was stolen, and one of the clan's women decided that she would go find out where it had been taken. The only information that their trackers could find on the stolen relic was that it was being shipped to Vasilikan, Arran's homeland. He offered to guide the young woman and assist in the search, but requested payment upon delivery of the relic.
As the carriage skidded to a halt, Arran was once again pulled from his thoughts. Looks like they were at their destination. Pushing the door open Arran stepped outside, his legs feeling stiff from the long ride from the port. Walking over to the carriage driver Arran could see the man in much more detail than the tiny window could offer. Medium length raven hair pulled back into a ponytail and long muttonchops graced his square-shaped face. His clothing was simple, a green and black striped jacket over a tan coloured tunic and dark brown pants with buckled boots of a brighter shade of brown. Nodding his head in appreciation Arran began to turn away, but the man quickly spoke up, "Whoa, whoa, hold up there! The ride was a freebie, but the least you can do is tell me what it is you two are doing out here." he was ever the persistent one, Arran stared over to the carriage, "We need to get some information from the elves here." he answered rather bluntly, as was his nature. The man simply stared at Arran his brow furrowing at the knight's response, "Uh.... huh. Right. Well, this folks ain't exactly known for sharing information. Secretive lot." he remarked before spitting off to the side, "We'll come to an agreement, I'm sure." Arran's tone remained as bland and bored sounding as it had always been, as if he wasn't about to expression emotion in his voice. Stepping away from the driver Arran glanced at the open carriage door, "Daeva, you got everything you need?" he asked as he approached the door.
ஐThe jostling about of the carriage made it near impossible for Daeva to do any resting at all, so she had merely kept her gaze locked on the outside world passing by. As far as she had travelled in her years, she'd never been this far from her clan. At least, not without her family. She stole a glance at her travel companion, napping on the other side of the bouncing carriage. It had been three days thus far, and Daeva still wasn't sure what to think of him. She decided not to dwell upon it as she turned her gaze back to the window. Before long, a large jolt caused her to temporarily lift from her seat and land with a soft oof!. She turned her gaze to Arran as she righted herself and listened to the driver informing them that they were almost at their destination. Instead of replying or saying anything, Daeva turned her attention back to the landscape beyond the dusty window.
Her mind then turned to the task at hand. She was still having a hard time believing that someone would actually have the gall to steal from her clan. It's not as if it were inconceivable that it could happen, but the fact that no one had seen or heard anything truly surprised her. The clan relic is always very well guarded when not in use. She shook her head at the thought. She had been in training to be the next relic keeper after her father. Which is why Daeva had felt it her responsibility to track it down. She only hoped that Arran was as good as he claimed. The carriage finally came to a stop. Daeva had never been comfortable in these awful, rickety things. If she thought about it, this was probably the fourth time in her life she had ever been in one. And each time had been out of necessity, definitely not for pleasure.
Before she could step out of the carriage, the driver asked what they were looking for. She opened her mouth to answer with a simple 'That's our business.', but Arran answered before she could ❝Yes, I believe so.❞ She replied to him, grabbing her dark, green cloak from her seat and stepping down from the carriage, landing with a soft thud, a small amount of dust stirring up beneath her boots. She took a step away from the carriage and looked back at it, watching for a moment as the driver pulled away and rattled away, stirring up a fair amount of dust, which caused her to cough a little.
Daeva quickly put on her cloak and used it to cover her mouth. After a moment, the breeze carried the dust away and Daeva turned to look up at her travel companion. ❝Now what do we do? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with these parts, I've never been this far out.❞ Daeva asked, taking in the sights, smells and sounds of their new surroundings.
Once Daeva had gathered her belongings and left the carriage Arran gave the driver the gesture to leave, but not before thanking him one last time. The elf questioned what their next step was, stating that she had never been this far away from her clan's camp, "We gather information. Most humans wouldn't even know what we're looking for, so I assumed our best bet would be to see if any of the clans around here had their relics stolen as well." he answered, admitting that he was only going off a gut feeling. Even if the clans hadn't had their relics stolen then at the very least they would know what the duo was looking for and would be able to alert the two if they heard anything relevant. In Arran's mind this plan was flawless, he hadn't yet accounted for the clans' cooperation or if they would require something in return for their assistance.
The two were still a short walk away from the Elven settlement of Quilda Celeth, as the pathway only led travelers so far. The Elves here were rather secretive, preferring to keep their encampment off the main road, however, once word got out of the camp's location they had been seeing more and more visitors. The rumours of the encampment say that they don't enjoy the presence of tourists, but Arran was sure that they would be much more accommodating with Daeva nearby.... or at least he hoped so.
Beginning the trek towards the Elven Encampment, Arran kept quiet, as he was known to do. However, every few minutes he began to roll his shoulders or adjust the wrappings on his face, as if he had been uncomfortable about something. He wouldn't admit it, but Arran felt rather naked without his old set of armour on him; to pay for their ferry back to Vasilikan he had to sell his armour, bow, arrows and quiver to a local blacksmith to afford the passage. They were lucky that the carriage driver was going the same way as them and offered free transport, or else they would still be on the road just outside the port city.
"Hold it steady you idiot!" a man shouted from further up the road. A large wagon was pulled a bit to the side on the path, canvas tarps covering whatever was in the back, but two men were beside it, one wrestling with a wheel while the other braced the wagon with a long beam. Evidently the wagon had broken a wheel on one of the many potholes and the two had been trying to fix it, for quite some time it would seem as the man holding the beam looked quite worn out, sweating profusely despite the cool afternoon breeze rolling down the mountain.
"s**t! I said hold it-" the first man yelled again as the wagon dropped too low, preventing him from pushing the wheel into place, only to be cut off at a loud crack as the beam began to split. Suddenly, the beam snapped, dropping the wagon hard enough to break the new wheel, and tipping the entire carriage towards the two men, who swore and dove out of the way only to watch in horror as their tarped luggage came crashing out, amid a series of angry snarls. As the object crashed the the ground the sound of iron on rock resounded across the mountainside and the tarp fell away to reveal that it was a cage with three of what appeared to be lion cubs inside, and there were two more cages that hadn't quite made it out of the cart with several more, all snarling angrily and bashing against the cages.
The cage that had fallen out though, apparently broke, as the door fell open as one of the creatures smashed against it, and the three quickly filed out into the open.
"s**t, s**t s**t, run!" one of the men shouted as the two jumped to their feet and took off down the road as fast as they could go, rushing past the two travelers without hardly noticing them in their panic.
ஐDaeva nodded as Arran explained their game plan. If you could call it that. It seemed that she didn't know what she was doing after all. She only hoped that they could find the information that they needed. Daeva had never actually left her clan encampment by herself before. Granted, she wasn't actually alone, but she was with someone who was essentially a stranger. Any travelling she had done had been in the company of her father and/or brothers. Daeva was the only girl in a family of three children. And also, she happened to be the youngest. She felt silly thinking about it, she was her own adult, but she missed her little family already. She had only been gone for three days, but it was the longest three days of her life.
Daeva's ears perked slightly as she heard a couple of men who seemed to be struggling not far off from them, but picked up her pace and followed swiftly behind Arran. Her naturally curious mind demanded she ask him all sorts of questions, but she wasn't sure if she should. He was so quiet, it was almost imposing. Nothing but a brick wall of silence between them. She fidgeted with the hem of her cloak as they walked. ❝So.... um.... might I ask you a question?❞ She spoke softly, feeling as though she were slicing through the silence with a knife. Regardless of his response, she spoke too quickly to allow him much time to reply or protest.
❝Why are you helping us? I mean, aside from the reward... I know that's an obvious one, but it's really not that much money we are offering...❞ She would have continued her soft speech but just then, Daeva heard a loud and vicious roar from ahead of them and her heart jumped. She turned to look and just as she did she saw a beastly sight that made her blood run cold. ❝Um, Arran...❞ she gasped, her arm raised in a half gesture in the direction she was looking. Just then she saw the men whom she had noticed struggling earlier race past them with a soft whoosh due to their speed. Immediately Daeva turned and began to sprint, half grasping at Arran's arm to get him to start running also.
As the two began walking towards their destination, the sight of two men attempting to fix a cargo wagon came into view. Arran thought about whether or not they should stop and help out, but ultimately decided that they would only get in the way. It was around this time that Daeva had wondered if she could ask him a question, mentally he remarked "You just did", but before he had the chance to speak she began questioning him on why it was that he had offered to help her clan. However, her words were cut short when the sounds of an agitated roar followed by quick footfalls echoed out in the forest pathway.
Instinctively, Arran reached for his sword and readied himself for whatever the source of the noise was, only for his eyes to go wide in surprise at what he had seen. The cargo wagon was now overturned, with multiple manticores surrounding it on all sides. The beasts were a disturbing and terrifying sight to behold, with the body of a lion, wings of a bat (yet scaled appropriately) and the face of a man... and yet its mouth was not quite human, stretched from ear to ear with rows of teeth barely visible within. At the moment, only three of the manticores were free, but they all seemed pre-occupied with freeing the other captive beasts.
While Daeva had placed a hand on Arran's arm to warn him to leave, the man simply raised his free hand to about chest height, "Don't. Move." his voice was quiet yet stern, like a harsh whisper. They couldn't leave just yet; if they left now, then Quilda Celeth would be unaware of the Manticore threat nearby. They had to get there and warn them, but the wagon was still in their way and they would need to sneak past the creatures. For now, their best course of action was to remain out of sight and not make any noise. Slowly and quietly stepping over to the ditch at the side of the road, Arran crouched down and lifted a fist-sized stone off of the ground.
Looking over to Daeva, Arran began to formulate a plan in his head, "I have a plan, but you're going to need to trust me." he started, keeping his voice low as to not attract the manticores' attention. Glancing over to the beasts, Arran made sure that they were still focused on breaking the cages that held their brethren, once he was certain that they were safe he began to explain his plan: "I'm going to throw this stone over into the foliage on the other side of the road, the manticores will hear it and investigate the noise. When they do that, you will need to creep past the wagon. After you've reached a safe distance, you'll do the same for me. Stay on this side of the road, and don't get too close to the bushes, if you make any noise we could be in danger. Understood?" his plan wasn't the most well thought out, but it was the best he could come up with in such short notice.
Raising his free hand, Arran held up three fingers before silently counting down. Once he reached zero, he flung the stone into the foliage on the opposite end of the road. It was a long shot, but if they worked together, they just might be able to pull this off.
(( OoC: Heh, no worries. I had a poor choice in wording, it took me a day to even realize that. But don't worry about taking so long to post, I get like that too, sometimes I get stuck on writing a part down and it drives me nuts... well, either that or I'm playing a video game and don't realize I've been playing for well over four hours.
Also, I believe the wagon was still ahead of Arran and Daeva when the Manticores broke free. You may want to fix the bit where you mention that the roar came from behind them. ))
Quotes:
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 10:07 pm
×××D ᾱҿѷᾱ✲L ᾱɳϯɧҿᾱ×××
׺°”˜`”°º×׺°”˜`”°º×
ஐDaeva froze in her flight, barely having lifted her foot from the ground when Arran stopped her. She knew better than that. ❝Don't. Move.❞ Arran whispered, though Daeva thought it sounded more like a quiet growl. She was immediately ashamed of herself for being so quick to flee, but pushed that thought away and listened intently to Arran's plan. She surveyed the scene before them as one of the ghastly creatures began trying to pry open one of the other cages. ❝I understand. I'm light on my feet. I can do this.❞ She assured him. She knew that this probably wasn't the best plan, but when she took a moment to think about it, the village ahead of them was totally unaware of these escaped creatures. And they likely had people much more able to combat them than herself and her travel companion.
Daeva nodded and quietly readied her feet and set her eyes on a large bush that she felt was a safe distance away from the wagon as Arran began a silent countdown. Once he had flung the stone, she watched from a crouched position as the manticores immediately turned their large heads in the direction of the sound. The one that had been trying to chew through the bars of one of the cages hopped down off of it and headed towards the sound, it's long tail twitching. The other two followed and Daeva wondered if that one was perhaps the alpha. She didn't take the time to think on it too much for once they were, what she felt, a safe enough distance away she began to move in the direction Arran had told her. She stayed low to the ground but moved swiftly and quietly. This was one of the few times she was actually glad she was so much shorter and lighter than the rest of her clan. It really helped her because she couldn't even hear her own footsteps.
Only once did she make noise and that was when she neared the wagon and she accidentally kicked a stone. She tensed as it skittered across the pathway, but it didn't seem to phase the manticores in their search, though she could tell they were quickly becoming bored. She quickened her pace and soon passed the fallen wagon. She was incredibly grateful that the remaining cages were covered with some kind of tarp. She could hear growling come from within. After a moment she was far away from the wagon and stopped behind the large bush that she had spied a moment ago. She briefly breathed out a sigh of relief before turning to look where the monsters were.
They had lost interest in the foliage that Arran had tossed the stone into and were back at the wagon. She looked a little farther down the road and saw where she knew Arran was. She quickly looked around her feet as she crouched for a decent sized stone. After a moment, she found one and picked it up, judging it's weight in her mind and deeming that it should serve her purpose well. Oh, please let this work... she thought to herself as she readied her arm for the throw. She aimed for the same general area that Arran had tossed the other stone and flung the stone as hard and high as she could manage...
As the three manticores filed from the cage, and saw that there was no immediate threat, and the nearby bipeds didn't seem interested in them, one, apparently the leader and the one who had burst the cage initially, turned away to the next cage, containing three more of the rare beasts and began bashing against the door. This cage, not damaged from it's tumble, seemed to be holding well however, as while bash after bash did begin to dent the bars, it showed little sign of breaking.
Meanwhile the other two split up, one walking a short distance down the road and beginning to pace, throwing growls and warning snarls in the direction of the bipeds, while the other circled around to the other side of the wagon, pacing just the same as it's sibling and keeping watch for any new interference.
Soooo I was going to continue on to their reaction to the rock throw, but it occurred to me that you may want to try something different given that the scenario is a bit different from what you expected. And also I'm being called away, so that too. If you want me to continue this post let me know in the chat thread, if not, continue on. Posting order: Blaven, Aurea, Hinote.
Original post in spoiler for posterity.
I don't have time right now to make an actual post, so I'll do it as soon as I can tomorrow. Buuuuut, 90% of your post is wrong Aurea, because you made the assumption that the manticores would actually take the bait. Obviously you didn't realize this, so I won't be too harsh, but all NPCs are controlled entirely by crew, I don't just dump them and watch, I keep controlling them until the scene is ended. So basically what I'm saying is you can't actually control what the NPCs do like you did in your post. This is why it's best to follow a posting order. In this case, my reply should have come before your own, especially since your relies upon the reaction of the Manticores.
Having just finished explaining the plan, Arran's eyes shot back towards the manticores, with the realization of having been spotted only now dawning on him. One of the manticores approached the two, snarling as saliva dripped down it's inhuman mouth. Arran cursed under his breath and took a step back, being sure to keep eye contact with the beast. If they sprinted away right now it might think they were prey and give chase, he needed to appear as much of a threat to it and it was to them. Dropping the rock down to the ground, Arran hovered his right hand over the hilt of his sword, stepping away slowly as he did so, "Looks like we're leaving." he stated, sounding a bit remorseful, the best thing they could do in this situation now was to retreat and hope the beasts didn't attack Quilda Celeth.
Once the two of them were a solid fifty feet away, Arran turned his back to the manticores. Wondering what god he angered to cause such an event to befall him. Now that the only pathway to Quilda Celeth was temporarily blocked off, the two would need to find a new source of information, the only other Elven settlement he could think of was Aipio Yomenië, meaning that they would have to head West to Central Vasilikan. Looking over his shoulder to make sure that the manticore wasn't following them, Arran decided to explain the new plan, "We're going to Aipio Yomenië, it's another Elven settlement. It'll be one hell of a walk from here." since Daeva had no knowledge of the Vasilikan region, it was up to Arran to chart out their course.
Reply
