Twisted Lands (xivvix)

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

After blocking off the windows and barring the door with a wooden beam that had been sitting next to it, Elea heads upstairs to another bedroom and locks the door behind her. Snuggling up in the corner, it isn't long before the elf ranger falls into a fitful slumber.

She is disturbed in the night by a strange clawing sound coming from outside, but after a few minutes it goes away, and she falls back to sleep.

She is awakened to daylight, and the sound of a crow cawing outside the small bedrooms window.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Sleeping fitfully in the hostile territory, Elea wakes with a start, the incessant crow calls instantly reminding her of the danger she was in. Without wasting time she throws the cloth cover away and dons her armor and weapons once again. Once ready, she heads out of the house, stretching in the morning sun, though she watches her surroundings carefully.

After having met the merchant and seen the rare elven weapons he possessed the previous night, Elea now had a concrete goal aside from wandering the city aimlessly. It was time to hunt for things she might be able to trade with the man. After taking a careful look around, the ranger kneels and inspects the grounds, looking for any non-human tracks she might be able to follow. As she did so, she happened to remember the clawing sound that had briefly awoken her during the night. Perhaps some creature was nearby?

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Perception: Success.

Stepping outside, Elea immediately spots the gray skinned demon like the ones she'd killed earlier, sleeping against the side of the house. Perhaps that was what had made the clawing sounds? It didn't seem right to Elea, since these demons were, as far as she could tell, intelligent. Glancing around, she also spotted a pair of wolves across the street in front of another house, growling angrily at each other and snapping their jaws, apparently too busy with each other to notice her.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Elea immediately crouches when she notices the demon and the wolves. With a demon on one side of the street, and corrupted creatures on the other, the ranger knew she needed to be careful, lest she invite an attack from two sides. Though she has no wish to kill the beasts, their continued corrupted existence was an affront to nature, and must be taken care of. The demon, however, was an abomination, and more importantly infinitely more dangerous in the elf's opinion. After all, she had hunted wolves before, but these demons still held unknown powers she must contend with. 'It will be best to remove the threat of the demon,' she thinks, 'before I put down the beasts.'

Sneaking over to the demon, Elea draws her blade. It isn't until she is closer to it that she considers it strange that this demon would sleep in the open like this. On the other hand, it likely didn't feel much fear, with how thoroughly the town had been ransacked. With her mouth contracting into a grimace, Elea stalks forward again, preparing to plunge her weapon deep into the demon's neck, hopefully decapitating it.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Stealth: Success.
To-hit: Auto Hit
Damage: 9 + 9 = 18 x 2 = 36 damage.

Elea silently creeps up on the sleeping demon and drives her sword into its throat. The only sounds are a thump followed by a silent gurgle, the demon doesn't even open its eyes as it dies. The wolves continue snapping at each other, oblivious.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

As the demon twitches in it's death throes, Elea looks over her shoulders at the wolves. Relieved that they are still have yet to notice her, she breathes a sigh of relief then turns to face them, still crouching. Carefully, she sets her blade down on the ground and draws her bow and an arrow, then nocks it, aiming for one of the beasts. "May you find dignity in your return to the earth," she says solemnly, just before letting the arrow fly, the projectile aimed right for the the creature's heart.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Stealth: Success.
To-hit: Auto Hit
Damage: 3 + 15 = 18 x 2 = 36 damage.

Eleas arrow streak across the street and strikes the wolf right where she intended to hit. The beast drops dead of the arrow in its heart, its companion raises its head in confusion.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Without pause, Elea nocks another arrow and sends it flying at the other beast, once again aiming for the wolf's heart.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Stealth: Success.
To-hit: Auto Hit
Damage: 1 + 15 = 16 x 2 = 32 damage.

Her second arrow strikes the surprised wolf in the chest, killing it just as easily as the first.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

As the second beast fell, so too did Elea's bow, her arm going slack as she stood and looked over the street. With no other threats visible, the ranger's mind quickly shifted to her desire to get her hands on the elven weapons the merchant had shown her. Turning back to the demon, she carefully removes a patch of skin. 'That's twenty denarii down,' she thinks to herself, pleased at how easy it seemed it would be to reach her goal.

When done with the demon, Elea walks over to the wolves, lying dead in the street. She makes a sign with her hand, an old elven sign of respect for the loss of life, then kneels down next to them. Delicately, she attempts to retrieve her spent arrows, then goes about looking the wolves over for something caused by the corruption that the merchant might be interested in.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Taking a piece of skin off of the stalker and proceeding across the street, Elea finds that one of her arrows is still usable while the other leaves the head in the wolf as she pulls it out. As she yanks it out, she sees a faint red glow coming from the wound, and glancing in, sees a small, glowing, red stone. It takes her a minutes of digging with a knife, but she manages to pull the stone out, and upon doing so feels the corruption given off by the thing. It doesn't cause her any harm, but the ranger can sense that this was what had caused the wolfs mutation from a beast of nature into a pawn of the demons.

(Gain 1 x Stalker Skin and 1 x Darkheart.)

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Satisfied with what she had found so far, Elea sheathes her sword and throws her bow across her shoulder again before heading off down the street. With her previous experiences at the docks, she decides not to return there. Instead she heads back down the street the way she came in from, intending to head towards the center of town, where she might find more demons and corrupted beings.

(Maybe I should stop stealth killing everything so I can get exp too )

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

(And 2 exp!)

Heading back down the street, Elea creeps from place to place as usual, not taking the chance of walking into a trap.

Stealth: Success.

As she creeps along, the elvish ranger spots a woman walking down the street in the direction Elea came from, dressed not unlike the one she remembered from earlier. She walked with a noticeable sway in her step, and didn't seemed worried about the idea of demons in the area.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

(Haha, okay, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth )

Elea stops short at the sight of the woman. For a second, she considers passing by, but the words both she and Matthias had spoken earlier come back to her. 'The only thing I can do for her to is end her misery.' She breathes out discontentedly as she draws her bow once again. Though she is sure that what she is about to do is right, Elea still feels a twinge of uneasiness as she aims her bow. As soon as the arrow leaves her hand, Elea bows her head, and whispers a quick apology.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Stealth: Success.
To-hit: Auto hit.
Damage: 6 + 15 = 21 x 2 = 42 damage.

The arrow thuds into the womans chest, and she looks down at it in shock before falling to the ground. A small pool of blood forms around her as she gasps through her last few breaths while trying desperately to pull the arrow out, tears streaming down her face.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

With her head still bowed, Elea closes her eyes and tries to ignore the sounds of the dying woman's gasps for breath as she apologizes once more. Though the woman was human, and Badarian at that, Elea still feels a sense of guilt that she had not had when she killed the wolves and the bear. Elven rangers were taught to treat all nature equally, but she still can't help but feel bad for what she had just done.

With a final deep breathe in and out, Elea straightens up and walks out to the womans body, intent on retrieving both the arrow and a darkheart, should one be present. She makes it a point to keep her eyes away from the woman's face as she inspects the body.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

Walking over to the expired woman, Elea pulls her arrow out, finding it intact. She didn't see any red glow around the woman, though when she stretched out her spiritual senses she detected that the woman was completely corrupted, and that her soul had pieces of dozens of other beings souls attached to it, as though she had fed off of other beings souls. Remembering how the woman from before had fed off of her spiritual energy, Elea figures that this woman was more akin to that demon than the humans who had inhabited this town before the dark portal opened.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Elea's eyes narrow as she feels the strangeness of the woman's soul. The fact that the woman seemed more demon that human had the effect of lifting a weight from the elf's shoulders, though it brought a sense of confusion into her as well. Was it a demon that seemed human and come through the portal, or was it some kind of mix of the two that had existed in the world prior. Elea had heard of women with demonic qualities, but even they would seem more human than demon. Shaking her head, the elf realizes it to be pointless to continue worrying. She would receive no answers here, and she still had much work to do. Elea cleans the arrow, places it back in her quiver, then continues down the road, looking for a street that would take her towards the center of town.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Spoiler

Eleas Status HP = 43, P = 33, EP = 36

It isn't long before Elea reaches the street she'd turned on to reach the docks. Here she could continue on following the river and eventually make a right to reach the center of town, or perhaps turn right now and eventually make a left.

 

[xivvix]

Re: Twisted Lands (xivvix)

Although the ranger had no trouble finding her way through the forest, a human city seemed like a maze. Every building looked the same, and the streets seemed to twist and turn without reason. Keeping her routes simple would be Elea's best bet for her to know where she is. With that thought in mind, she decides to stick with the major roads, continuing along the river towards the intersection she had first encountered after crossing the bridge. After she reached that, she would turn right and head into the city center.