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Post by Alexander on Aug 8, 2016 16:48:01 GMT -6
He was glad that he wasn't who ever it was trapped in the godforsaken tree's with unknown disasters encroaching on the sanctity of his life. Because the "defender of Sacae" had stopped to gawk over some other girl who showed up with a spear and the look of a half-dead rabbit. Honestly, while they sat there talking or discussing pretty dresses or what ever they were gossiping about, he'd already managed to close the distance. At this point, he almost wondered if he'd just be able to walk to the damned forest before the previously determined archer had even managed to stop drooling over the other lass.
Really, it was the heat. In his own environment he was a bit more sociable. Though that cold Ilian climate made for cold people to a degree. They had a sense of humor, but often it was only the best humor if it was at someone else expense. At this point he had started to make longer strides. A thought stirred. If there was a chance to fight, and test his mettle against some form of foe unique to Sacae within these forests? He'd relish it. Hells, he needed to kill something that could fight back. That might be the best thing to relieve his frustrations. Killing the stag and doe had helped slightly, but leaving them to check this disturbance roused that slumbering beast two fold.
He heard briefly, even as he approached, the girl asking about a "wolfman" reached his ears. He waited though, a few moments passing while he strode alongside Fernus before he piped up. His biting tone and rough abrasive nature shining through so purely, like any true Ilian. He didn't bother to gaze at either of the two girls though, now walking past them somewhat with hand atop the longsword sheathed at his hip and his other hand resting at his side.
"Aye, don't mind Wolfman none. You two keep gawkin' over one nother's dresses or what evah' yer' doin. I'll just keep walkin' towards the forest that people are likely dyin' in."
He took a few steps past them, still moving. However he whistled loudly with lips pinching together to jet out the necessary air, which instantly drew the wolf's undivided attention up to his owner. His tone was stern, and he unsheathed his blade while remaining in stride.
"Fernus! Stalk."
Out of the handful of commands he'd trained the wolf on, it was probably the most cautious of them. Almost instantly, the large beast scurried ahead and off to the side, nose kept to the ground more often than not and his large body lowered surprisingly well to minimize visibility and sound generation. The wolf turned and started to run along the tree line away from Alexander who moved directly for the source of trouble. The duo had visibly split up.
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Artemis
Archer
Aspiring Heroine
Posts: 16
Profession: Huntress
Affiliation: Sacae
Affinity: Wind
OoC Alias: Starduster
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Post by Artemis on Aug 8, 2016 17:03:34 GMT -6
“Lend a hand...?” Artemis asked, confused. Then she remembered. The fire! Damn, she felt so guilty for managing to forget about it. “Right, the fire.” She confirmed, taking charge of the situation again. “I'll be honest with you, I don't know the cause of it, so no, sadly we've no real plan on how to deal with it. We're going to have to see what's waiting for us and be flexible about it. If it's a forest fire, all we can do is steer clear and warn anyone nearby. If someone's in trouble, we'll need to coordinate ourselves there and then.”
Suddenly the lunk piped up again with another one of his sexist jabs. On a reflex, Artemis drew her bow, ready to put an arrow into the back of Alexander's head. Then she thought better of herself. What kind of role model would she be to anyone if she killed over stupid statements coming from an idiot like him? If he was really so mindless, she'd have to get him some help afterwards, lest he offend someone less gracious than herself.
“Come on,” Artemis said to Eris as she began to pace off again. “Whatever's going on over there, I'd rather find out there's nothing we can do than live with the knowledge that I never even tried.” Breaking pace just once more to stop and wait for Eris to catch up, Artemis winked slyly asked her “What's your name by the way? Is it as pretty as you are?”
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Eris Coulson
Soldier
"Sometimes goodbye is a second chance"
Posts: 106
Profession: Mercenary
Affiliation: Ambition
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Eris Coulson
OoC Alias: Tsunderis
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Post by Eris Coulson on Aug 8, 2016 18:00:28 GMT -6
Sure enough, as if he could have been on cue but didn't give a damn, the wolfman in question strolled in behind them, accompanied by his stupidly big canine. The dark haired man didn't seem to take too well to his nickname, but Eris didn't really care. What DID piss her off, though, was his belief that they were talking about dresses. Seriously? She was in FULL ARMOUR. Did it look like she wanted to talk about dresses?!
"Hey, asshole!" Eris snapped at the man, ignoring the Sacaen in an attempt to vent her frustration, but the man split up from his hound, Fernrus or Fernus or something, and moved forward. Eris ground her teeth and clenched her fist, but she had to admit he was in the right. They had to deal with the situation first. THEN she could kick his ass.
Still...feeling this fire again felt good. Angry as she was she at least felt fired up, ready to go. She even felt a bit energized.
She was able to put her full focus on the objective now. The Sacaen stated that she hadn't the foggiest idea what the cause of this fire was, or even if it was just a forest fire or not. Great. Well, at least she knew they were going in blind now. Hopefully the man's wolf wasn't as stupid as he was. It could prove valuable in sniffing out trouble, and if it wasn't damned massive it could do it stealthily.
"Okay, fine. We'll just get closer and plan accordingly, got it?" If the Sacaen didn't have a plan than Eris would formulate one. She'd have to make sure she caught up to asshole-wolfman so he was on board too. Energized she ran after the Sacaen, keeping up much better than before. The girl...winked back at her, for some reason, and asked...
...Oh wait, what the fu-
"Uh, probably not." What kind of response was that? Ugh. Eris hadn't been in the right mindset to be hit with a question like that. She was focused on the task at hand, and she'd definitely prefer to stay that way until it was dealt with. "Ugh, it's Eris. Eris Al-"
Eris paused. Not moving, she kept moving, but her expression fell notably and her eye darkened. No, she wasn't an Albrecht. Not anymore. Hah, and after all that boasting when she had first been legitimized. "Eris Coulson. Name's Eris Coulson."
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Post by Alexander on Aug 8, 2016 20:12:14 GMT -6
Alexander was moving along with a faster stride. Longer ones had increased his pace, but the anticipation before a fight was slowly sinking in. Adrenaline rising, climbing quietly. The unknown ominous nature was practically palpable. He'd started to jog lightly. Footsteps growing as he moved quicker, his blade slid from the leather sheath with his hand lifting it in full. He was pumping his arms a bit faster, at a steady rate but now carrying his body further. Every passing second brought him closer to the forest.
He figured the other two girls were moving once more now, given that in-between footfalls he could hear the rustling behind him faintly. The young Ilian was almost hoping that it was something in need of killing. This way he could put in some much needed combat time. That was another thing he hated about Sacae so far. Ilia, at-least where he was from, wasn't just a frozen land of trials and strife. It was rampant with wild-men. Tribes of barbaric men who often abducted or murdered outsiders wantonly. His family, and many in their lands had kept themselves sharp in combative skill through fighting these barbarians.
Alexander hadn't run into a single damn person to scrap with since he'd arrived. Not, once. No wild animals trying to kill him. No people getting violent. Just push-overs and annoyances. As he neared the outskirts of the forest though, he slid from a solid sprint and into a crawling approach. Though his heart raced from the brief all out run, his breathing was sturdy. Solid. Controlled. In through the nose, out through the mouth and in a quiet manner that prevented detection of him. What ever was in the forest, he'd ready himself.
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Artemis
Archer
Aspiring Heroine
Posts: 16
Profession: Huntress
Affiliation: Sacae
Affinity: Wind
OoC Alias: Starduster
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Post by Artemis on Aug 10, 2016 6:05:13 GMT -6
Seeing Eris' less than enthusiastic response to her question, Artemis got the feeling she was a little down. “Come on, it was a compliment! And Eris is a great name!” Artemis said, still jogging alongside Eris. “So, have you been travelling long, Eris?” Artemis still had her mind focused on locating and dealing with whatever was causing the large plume of smoke, but she also wanted to make sure that there was nothing wrong with Eris. She'd be in no state to help if her heart wasn't in it.
Stumbling into a clearing, Artemis came face to face with something hideous. It looked like some kind of corpse, but various parts of its bodied were miscoloured and mismatched with others, and it had large, vicious claws and was spewing some kind of dark mist from its mouth. Catching site of Artemis, the monster lashed out with surprising speed. While it was just out of reach from doing any serious harm to Artemis, it did manage to knock her backwards and off her feet.
Without taking her eyes off the creature as it stood in place, sizing her up and making strange thrusting and jerking motions with its shoulders, Artemis addressed the group. “What is that thing? Where did it come from?” Having grown up in an orphanage in a small Sacaen village, spending the past few months living by herself in the wild, Artemis had not heard of Lycia's monster problem, so the appearance of a stray Revenant here in Sacae was especially unnerving to her.
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Eris Coulson
Soldier
"Sometimes goodbye is a second chance"
Posts: 106
Profession: Mercenary
Affiliation: Ambition
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Eris Coulson
OoC Alias: Tsunderis
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Post by Eris Coulson on Aug 10, 2016 10:08:57 GMT -6
Eris slowed down once it appeared that she had more or less caught up with Alexander, the...evidently flirty Sacaen still close. Apparently she wasn't exactly thrilled with Eris' response, but how was Eris supposed to know something like that was coming? She had just met the woman. Ugh, if there wasn't some potentially fatal task at hand she might have been more in the mood to entertain the Sacaen. Instead she gave her a quick glance and rolled her eye.
"Yeah. Compliment. Thanks. But let's save the small talk for after we take care of this, got it?" That wasn't a request. If she kept trying to throw needless conversation her way before this was over, Eris definitely wasn't going to be happy.
Eris turned her good eye forward once again and nearly guffawed. How the hell did the stench not hit her first? Either way it was all hitting her now. The smell of rotted flesh permeated the air, and she saw what looked to be the deformed corpse of a human being emerge from behind one of the trees. Had it just been some normal soldier or enemy Eris would have struck it before the thing could even lash out, but she was left stunned as the corpse monster attempted to attack Artemis.
"Wh-what the hell?!" Her moment of hesitation, though, was at an end. She'd never seen these monster from Lycia, hell she wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing them anyway. That's the whole reason she'd chosen Sacae and it's strange land and culture anyway. However just because she was avoiding them as a whole does not mean she was going to just turn and run now. To hell with that!
Eris flourished her lance, twirling it between her hands swiftly before slashing at the monstrosity, the blade of her spear catching it right across it's chest. No blood poured from the wound, yet opening the corpse up just let more of that putrid odor out into the air. It was nearly enough to make Eris retch. The beast itself made guttural noises in response, but didn't exactly seem phased, before turning it's full attention onto Eris.
Right, corpse monster doesn't die like a normal human. Great.
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Post by Alexander on Aug 15, 2016 18:16:12 GMT -6
What is that thing? Where did it come from!?
The sight of the monstrosity before him should have disgusted him. It should have revolted him to his core. However perhaps it was his pent up frustration and aggression welling to the surface like bubbling water set to a full boil, because all he could manage was a livid bellow of laughter as he started circling to the right of the fiend. A full on murderous thrill rushing through him as it lunged forwards and knocked the sacaen over. Alexander's voice was loud, and he took strong solid steps forwards as he readied every muscle in his body. He started sprinting for it while the one eyed woman made a stab for it.
"It's an undead. Somethin' from Lycia, or the mountains o' Ilia. No idea where it came from. I can tell ya' where it's goin' tho'! Back to fookin' hell!"
The Ilian mercenary lunged forwards with his blade leveled near his shoulders before plunging it straight into the fiends chest. At this proximity, the rotting stench was wafting so heavily that it choked the air. The heat made it worse. However to Alexander, it meant one thing. He'd smelled such a rotting scent before. Game slaughtered and left for dead. Barbarians from the mountains that'd been slain and brutally butchered to be put by limbs on display. Men flayed alive. This wasn't a new scent to him, and part of him found the stink like a faint grim macabre touch of home in this green hellish wasteland of a country.
His blade punctured through rotten flesh. Bone cracked under the power of his bodies weight thrown behind solid Ilian forced steel and a well poised strike. Up to the hilt in-fact, and as the monster turned it's sight onto him, the black haired mercenary snarled before trying to remove his jammed weapon.
Slash.
A moderate gash rent into his chest from his upper right shoulder to the lower section of his chest beneath his pectoral and along side his armpit. Though a rage filled pain induced shout left his lips, the crude gruff fighter leaned forwards at such close quarters and crashed his skull into the fiends. It was bracing. Jarring even to he who performed the motion, but the raw force sent the monster into a reclined state. Now, with his body in partial shock and an overdose of adrenaline coursing through his veins, his body entering the preservation stage of "fight or flight," the Ilian pressed his momentum. It was obvious very quickly on, that he'd chosen "fight". He cocked back his right arm while his left gripped harder at the hilt of his blade, and he punched hard into the side jaw of the zombified fiend. Enough to crack the knuckles of his bottom two fingers even as he sent it reeling far enough to dislodge his blade.
The thin white under tunic he'd sported was almost entirely useless. Clinging to his sweat laden skin with dark hues of crimson tainting it quickly as the sanguine trails of his blood began to trail from his open wound, he deemed the shirt useless. The Ilian tore what little of it was left and discarded the sides individual before pressing his index finger and thumb to his lips while pinching them. He whistled loudly. Very loudly. With the small window of inability to feel pain still upon him. he lifted his blade once more and readied another round at the fiend, while the distant echo of a familiar howl split the sky. In the distance, the monstrous arctic wolf was racing through the forest to his masters side. This fight was far from hopeless. In-fact, Alexander loved his odds.
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Artemis
Archer
Aspiring Heroine
Posts: 16
Profession: Huntress
Affiliation: Sacae
Affinity: Wind
OoC Alias: Starduster
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Post by Artemis on Aug 16, 2016 6:29:40 GMT -6
Jumping to her feet, Artemis couldn't help but snicker as Alexander shouted curses at the top of his voice upon the monster. She knew the situation was dangerous, but it was at least a little amusing hearing such words roll off a foreign tongue, as well as the fact that Alexander was trying his very hardest to sound formidable. Then she groaned as he ripped off his undershirt. What was he trying to achieve here? Was there really such a point to all the grandstanding?
Getting back down to fighting, Artemis drew her bow. A mistake right now could easily cost one of her allies their life, but Artemis was confident. She was trained better than that. Slowing her breath and keeping her hands steady, Artemis aimed for the monster's eye. She had no idea how to kill an undead, but she could at least give it a hard time seeing. The string was released. The arrow flew whistling through the air and sank itself into the left eye. Artemis then did the same to the right, fully blinding the creature, which now let out a blood curdling moan. “Get out the way!” Artemis yelled. “Now it's blinded, it's going to be a lot more reckless. It can't see anything, so it's going to swing wildly!”
Just as Artemis had warned, the creature was now flailing its large talons left and right in a vain attempt to hit something. Artemis now decided to start working on sinking some arrows into the shoulders. If she could reduce the reach of the monster, it would have a much harder time being so aggressive.
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Eris Coulson
Soldier
"Sometimes goodbye is a second chance"
Posts: 106
Profession: Mercenary
Affiliation: Ambition
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Eris Coulson
OoC Alias: Tsunderis
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Post by Eris Coulson on Aug 16, 2016 9:47:19 GMT -6
Seeing how the corpse monster took her attack in stride and almost good humor, Eris didn't exactly want to just hop right back into the fray with it. She needed time to come up with a proper strategy. A plan of attack. She was used to things dying relatively easily. Namely people. Run 'em through with a lance and odds were they weren't gonna just go on with their day. A distraction, brief reprieve, was what she needed.
Luckily for Eris she got her wish in the form of the dark haired swordsman. He made some silly boast about sending the creature to the hell whence it came, the freaking idiot that he was, only to get his chest clawed up by the beast after running it through with his sword...something that it also seemed to take in stride. Right, so ordinary methods of dealing with things were not going to fly so well.
...Okay, okay. Fine then. They didn't need to kill it fast. They could just chop the corpse up and leave it there. Maybe even burn it or something for good measure. There WAS still that fire going on nearby. They didn't want to spend TOO much time with this rancid creature.
"All right, new plan." Eris barked out as Artemis fired a couple arrows into the creature's eyes. Well, that ought to make Eris' plan swifter. "We tear this thing to pieces. Don't worry about killing it. Just...just get rid of it's limbs. If it can't stand or walk it can't attack us."
Eris felt that she didn't exactly need to spell out that time was of the essence. Again, fire not that far away and everything, so she simply left it at that and thrust her lance into the creature's thigh. The spear-tip embed itself in the creature's rotted flesh and it began to lash out, swinging it's arms in Eris' direction, going off of scent or hearing or whatever. Shame it's reach didn't exactly match hers. Eris grinned almost sadistically as she gripped her lance tighter and pulled it forward, her lance literally tearing through the creature's flesh.
It started to buckle towards it's side now, letting out feral cry as Eris finished tearing through it's left leg with a disgusting "schlop". Just make things worse, it seemed the swordsman's insanely tall wolf had looped back to it's master. Yeah, this thing was done.
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Post by Alexander on Aug 21, 2016 20:04:27 GMT -6
He was sure that once the fervor of battle was over, he was certain to regret his life decisions. That moment hadn't quite arrived though, so he wasn't going to relent. Thick trails of crimson coated his lower torso, trailing between the toned portions of his abdominal muscles and along the sides of his rib-cage. He felt the warmth of the flames washing over him as the biting orange tongues of flaming forest fire grew closer. The monster was being maimed by the rest of the fighters there, but Alexander did not peel off to gather himself or rest. Instead, while his body was fueled by the adrenaline which pumped through his veins and allowed him not to feel his wound ultimately. Instead, his chest simply felt a bit heavy. Numb even, ultimately.
He rushed towards the now one legged creature as he swept his blade towards it's right arm. The blind monster flailed it's twin limbs wildly while the hand-and-a-half sword sliced through the air to connect with undead flesh and bone. However, it's limbs were still strong. Muscle, and bone resisted as his weapon locked itself half way through the bone. Another claw flailed, as it brought it's other arm down directly towards him. It came down, crashing into the Ilian's shoulder while razor claws sank into his shoulder. Now, that one he felt. He roared in pain as another series of thick crimson trails started to trickle down along his large shoulder and trailed along either side. He did not relent. He did not yield. He threw himself into the monster as he brought his weapon down once more to bring his blade down a second time through the rest of the fiends arm. Alexander..did not fight alone however.
A loud snarl ripped through the lingering quiet as Alexander was injured. The monstrous wolf ran to it's partners side as the large limb which tore into Alexander's shoulder was released as it went back only to charge in for round two. A blur of white flew past Alexander and a monstrous set of jaws snapped down upon the large hand. Teeth pierced through it as the crushing force snapped through bone with ease. A wolf's jaw was far more powerful with greater crushing force than a human could generate into a wrist to swing their blade. The hand was taken off, and it was left almost entirely unable to fight. As Fernus did, Alexander leaned back with his left arm becoming extremely heavy. He leaned forwards, shifting his right arm's blade atop his shoulders while he starts to breath heavily, sharp inhales forcing the circulation. The quiet ebb of pain was seeping back into his veins.
The large wolf hunched over on all fours leaning near it's master while the hound defended it's master.
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