Welcome to Gaia! ::

✦ Step 1: Capture. ✦

Ever since his first encounter with a wild hastar on Soudulian soil, Detraeus became progressively more set on attaining one for his own for a number of reasons. From the most practical standpoint, he needed a mount of his own. He’d known this for some time, but the longer he went without one, the more the necessity became drilled into him. The inconveniences of depending on others — often with the requirement of coin — to transport him anything even approaching a significant distance was a hassle he preferred to eliminate in as timely a manner as possible. In general, he preferred not to waste his time or his coin, and detested being dependent.

The degree to which he traveled, however, provided him multiple opportunities to return to Soudul — if spread out over a period of many months with great gaps in between — and he took to spending more of his practice reading hours on gathering available information on the beasts. Though by default never a ‘book learner’ in the past — having never had the ability as a child, nor the incentive in any great amount for a particular subject other than the holy book of his goddess until now as an adult — he concluded that the worst result would be that he learned nothing useful and only furthered his reading skills. At best, whatever information he found might actually prove of use.

Unfortunately, while there was a great deal of literature that seemed to be aimed at the farming community — ranchers, racers, breeders, tenders — and so on, detailing everything from what to feed them when for optimal strength or speed or stamina, how to house them, and what rituals were necessary to maintain their health, Detraeus found little to nothing on actually catching those that ran free in the wild. It occurred to him that asking someone of experience might suit his needs, but between his limited — very limited — circle of ‘friends’ and by sheer virtue of the fact that he tended to make Not Talking To Anyone a life strategy of sorts, the thought was quickly dismissed in favor of his much preferred method: going for it, and doing his best not to get himself killed in the process.

Besides, Soudulian hastar were among the most docile of all the native wild breeds across the continents — were they not?

And so it was, that perhaps three months after his initial encounter with the first wild hastar on the dark continent, Detraeus found himself tracking through the fungal forests of his homeland, attention rooted on the surrounding greenery and looking for any signs of his desired beast. It was hours, late into the night and approaching dawn, before Detraeus got on the proper trail for one. Though better prepared than before, when said beast had caught him completely off guard with its impromptu visit along the outskirts of his camp, he was still ‘armed’ only with a small bag of vegetable ‘treats’ native to the landscape and rumored to be popular feed for the creatures and a long, sturdy section of rope, coiled and knotted at his hip.

When he did, finally, track the beast whose prints he’d located, the chase and attempted capture was so embarrassing of a failure — involving a long chase through the woods, mishandling of rope, and various bruises relating to hooves, tree trunks, and surrounding shrubbery — that Detraeus found himself rather glad he’d attempted the catch in a remote, uninhabited area of the continent without company to witness his failures.

Nursing his bruises, Detraeus made mental note of his areas that ‘needed improvement’ — a gross understatement to an extent he was not of a mind to admit to — and vowed for a more successful endeavor at a later date.