• Closed • An Unexpected Rescue

[Nir'wei]

11th Trial
3th Day of Ashan, 716th Arc
The Grimvale, bordering Krom.

Gaspard was off-work today - apparently he was taking some kind of religious holiday, although he hardly ever talked about which of the Immortals he worshipped, so he couldn't tell why. It didn't matter. Poppy was going to cover the Jacadons for the remainder of the season, meaning he'd already worked furiously into the late trials of the morning around the Voraleons, pushing wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of fruits, oats and other vegetation from the Lodge down towards their huts. To make up for the lack of Gaspard, Nir'wei and all of the other handlers, including even the grooms, were working overtime to make sure that all of the jobs were carried out - and apparently they'd overestimated the expert's workload because with all of them pushing their limits, the day was over before it had ever really begun. Not that he was really complaining. Even though his arms felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets, he had the whole rest of the day to relax a little and cool off. That meant a chance to take a long walk through the countryside of Andaris, through some pleasant fields and perhaps even stop off in one of the nearby forests to relax.

Even though Cylus, when the entire world was practically doused in perpetual darkness.. and through the Grimvale, one of the darkest and generally unfavourable forests, Nir'wei still felt he might be lucky enough to catch some game, if he brought his hunting equipment. His short-bow was hung diagonally down one shoulder and across his plexus, with a small handful of arrows tucked arrowhead-down into the side of his loose trousers. Perhaps it was this very crude offensive gear that had drawn the attention of a roving group of shoddily-armoured men and women a small distance back, through one or two fields. He'd never given them much of a passing glance, but then again in the near-darkness of late morning, he could hardly see anything. Then they'd suddenly turned around and started following the same route as him.. for quite a long time, too. Nearly half a trial of little detours, brushes through bushes and shortcuts and they'd followed him all the way, taking exactly the same route. A little suspicious.

Nir'wei tried to put them out of his mind, but their constant presence was unnerving. Thinking of throwing them off, he turned into the Grimvale, hopped down into a trench in the ground, then crawled inside of a fallen tree that had long ago been hollowed out by a combination of rot and other animals using it for shelter. For several long moments of agonizing silence he knelt in the damp moss, training his ears any sound, but nothing came. Perhaps he was just imagining it.. so much time spent in the city had ruined his peaceful nature, making him delusional, maybe even paranoid. Just then, though, a sound broke through. A young woman's, gruff and angry. "Spread out! You, that way, you, here..." Her words were quiet but sharp, echoed by grumblings of others as their footprints spread out all around the log. They're not searching for me?

What could they possibly want? He wasn't carrying any money, the short-bow and arrows couldn't even fetch a few gold nel's considering their severely worn condition, his clothes were pretty dirty - they were the only set he had at the moment and there wasn't much point in washing them out, if he was just going to wear them to work the next day and get back to scooping up Volareon shit. Maybe they had him confused with someone else? Maybe he's confused them for someone else? Who knew?

The voices faded away and the footsteps continued south. Nir'wei allowed himself a little sigh of relief and shuffled back out of the hollowed log, rubbing the back of his neck where it'd scraped into a particularly sharp branch. No sign of them, but he wasn't going to stand around and wait for them to turn around and come back. He quickly turned back around and scrambled back up out of the trench, pushing away skeletal branches and forcing his way back out of the glen.. unfortunately creating a lot of noise on the way. Somewhere off in the distance, he swore he could hear some kind of muffled shouting, making his hands work even faster to break away the thick curtain of woodland blocking his escape. "Grrr.. stupid nature!" It truly was something beautiful to look at, and to be a part of, but sometimes it could be a real pain in the arse.

[Franz Messer]

Sometimes one has to use the free time allotted to them for useful pursuits, a relaxation from the stresses and drudgery of their regular work. Many liked to do so by fishing, spending what time they got of current trial for the simple peaceful and occasionally exciting prospect of catching fish, some liked to tend their gardens to make it nice and fanciful, and others tended to stick with a good book and nice soothing drink.

Franz did none of those, no when he had his days off he did something completely opposite of what one could consider relaxing and fun. No, he searched for danger and picked up a an extra bit of Nels as a mercenary. It was what he was before being a knight, before spending hours on a training field and attending patrols that tended to be just was troublesome.


He couldn’t help it really, danger was in his blood though he was perhaps the first in his line to display such a lust for danger. His kite shield to his back and longsword at his waist alongside a quiver of bolts and a pistol crossbow, he was armed to the teeth and protected by his leather armor and gauntlets as he walked through the lush nature and decidedly unfriendly foliage of the Grimvale forest like a familiar friend. Oh he didn’t know it like the back of his hands but he was familiar enough with it to not get utterly lost.

His quarry were a small number of bandits whom had ambushed a visiting merchant, killing off three of man’s private guard and ran off with a chest of valuables. The merchant offered a reward for the return of the chest and a bonus for killing three of the bandits, an eye to an eye as it were.

It was a dangerous task yes, but danger was the point of it all and for Franz that was all that mattered at the moment. As he traversed through the forest, his eyes randomy searching about for anything that screamed ‘BANDIT’, he tumbled over an oddly shaped mound.

“Oh bugger..” He said to himself as he face planted into the earth and grumbled some obscenities. Sitting up he turned his head to look at the oddly blockish mound. His brows flattened and his jaw slackened slightly as he realized what it was.

Poorly dug and poorly disguised, the mound turned out to be the missing chest. He could tell it was what it was because he immediately pulled the damned thing out and gave it a lookover, noting with obvious eyes that nothing about it was aged enough to count as some lost iron box.

The lock was not rusted and was still shut, the wood had no rot whatsoever…..oh and the merchants initials were emblazoned right on the top. It was large in size yet it was fairly wide and heavy, but Franz was certain enough that he could carry it with his left hand from one of the handles on the side.

It was here a decision had to be made, he’d already found the thing so damned easily that he could just stroll back the Fort and present it to the codger and get his Nils then and there and it would be one of the damned easiest jobs he’d ever done. On the other hand he could risk his life for the bonus and avenge the lives of three men, get his fun and put some souls to rest despite the danger.

Truly, it was a difficult decision; he chose the latter. A mischievous smirk made its way to his face, a cunning plan on his mind. It wasn’t something wise like putting the chest back where it was and wait for the bandits to come back for it then ambush them with full irony at hand. No, instead he decided to carry the damned thing and go on a stroll!

He reasoned that they’d be in a panic searching for it. Their blood-earned treasure stolen from them, walked off with some stranger? Unforgivable! No, they’d be searching furiously for whomever took their prize and they’d sink their blades into the perpetrator slowly and painfully….

Sounded like a decent enough challenge to him.

So far, everything seemed to be going to plan. After a few breaks he could hear the frantic shuffling of bush and grass, the shaking of branches, and the shouts of enraged and panicking bandits spreading andsearching for a certain ‘reclaimer of goods’ as Franz chose to call himself.

As he lightly wandered and was about to pass through a bit of foliage, he came face to face with one of the bandits. They seemed to freeze for a moment before the outlaw noted a rather familiar shape being carried….

“HEY, I FOUN-“ before he could finish that sentence the chest was swung to the side of his head like a blunt instrument and knocked the unlucky bastard out cold and sending his head into another unfortunate knock onto the bark of a tree.

Franz simply grinned wolfishly as he looked the direction of where the sod came from, a deep and vicious bark of laughter ringing out “Looks like hide and seek is over….”

….and another game was just about to begin.

[Nir'wei]

Blood dripped from Nir'weis fingers where they'd dug into a pile of brambles and snagged on the thorns. Scratches lined his face and bare arms, and he'd added more than a few new stains to his shirt and trousers. All of these things, the pain lancing through his sides and biceps as he strained and scrambled through the dirt, had all become a blur at the corners of his vision though. None of it mattered. Adrenaline was racing through his heart faster than any arrow and a pounding throb was resonating in his ears, muting all other sound than the snapping branches around him as he scrambled up the steep muddy slope, back towards civilization, protection!

Only to have it all thrown away by a firm, incredibly cold metal hand grab at one ankle and tug on it firmly, dragging the man back down the slope and caking his face in more dirt. "GET OFF!" He kicked out with the one free bare foot, hitting something solid, and earned a kick back in the lower back from the toe of a very tall and lightly-armoured man scowling grimly. Through the mottled-green leathers and dark brown furs, thick and well-defined muscle tensed, silencing most of his physical protests as the unknown soldier dragged him back and roughly picked Nir'wei up by the collar, shaking him like a rag-doll without even a word. "Hey! Get off, what you wa--"

The brute tossed Nir'wei back before he could finish the sentence and pulled a hand-axe from the holster at his side. "Where is it?!" he unleashed in a furious roar, lifting the weapon threateningly and waving it about. "Where did you take it, where's he gone, who took it?" Apparently he wasn't used to conversations; the accepted rule was that you waited for the other person to answer your question before you asked the next one. Although it was a truly fearsome show, if anything, it made Nir'wei pretty calm. At least they weren't interested in taking anything of his.

Once the soldier had finished his flurry, Nir'wei picked himself up off the ground and tried to dust himself down a little. "I.. I no idea talking about. Don't h-have anything yours. Yes?" Both hands raised, palms forward, he was very much afraid of the axe-wielding maniac but hell, he was free to search every inch of the Sev'ryns body because there was nothing hidden there, at all! The sooner he figured that out, the sooner the two of them could head their separate ways and never think on this again. "Just.. just ordinary hunter, looking game, for rabbit or other. T-That's it." His broken Common sounded even worse when he struggled to put it together under pressure. This had to be one of the most intensely stressful moments of his life thus far and he liked to think he was actually putting together his sentences pretty accurately, even though his pronounciation was utterly awful.

There was a long pause. Nir'wei tried not to look hopeful but the soldier frowned deeply, looking up and down the muddy man dressed in cheap clothes with extreme scrutiny. "Hmph," he grumbled after a long pause. "You're lying! Give me the chest, NOW!" It was at this point, all hope for reasoning with the man flew out of the window, sprouted wings and flew far off into the horizon.

It wasn't easy, arguing to a man with an axe in hand. Even harder when said man apparently struggled with quite simple ideas, whether from poor upbringing, some rare birth issue or a particularly hard mace to the forehead causing cognitive issues. Harder still when that man had a choke-hold around his throat, making it pretty hard to breathe, let alone speak. "Where hell am going hide big chest, down underwear?!" he gasped out, making the soldier look down and actually start reaching for his muddy trousers' waistline. "I.. don't know.. what TALKING ABOUT!" he shouted out as loud as he could, startling the man just a little, despite his appalling grammar.

"Well then..." The grin that spread across the man's mouth, revealing few yellow teeth, "you've outlived your usefulness." Around his neck came a new, much more uncomfortable feeling that truly put fear in his chest. It was the sharpened edge of the man's axe, close enough to trim a small patch of stubble from his chin as it slid down towards his adam's apple. He daren't even breathe, lest the intake of air cause the blade to accidentally slice through his neck.. before it was intentionally cut wide anyway. "Last chance, though. Tell me where the chest is, and where your friend has gone. Or die. Now."

[Franz Messer]

In hindsight, it was probably better if he had brought someone with him to back him up during this venture. After sucker-chesting (may as well be the word for it) the bandit with the reclaimed chest, it didn’t take too long for three of his cohorts to come help him just a bit too late.

They were ugly sorts, led by a woman who was about his height and would have no doubt been pretty if she took a bath. In her hand she held a wicked spear that was perhaps coated in an unidentifiable toxin that would perhaps or perhaps kill him. The two stooges besides her settled something more compact, a menacing looking club and a pair of daggers respectively.

This made it easier for him to attach nicknames to them; Spear, Club, and Daggers. On the creative scale it was a firm zero but it worked for his needs.

Spears snarled at him as he she pointed her spear threateningly “And praytell what brings a pig-faced swine like you to these woods?” His brows quirked at being called pig faced, taking note that the scars must’ve not impressed them. Still he kept his unnerving grin the while normally assumed to be one of nervousness and bravado, was actually an indicator of how much he enjoyed this.

Still he wasn’t quite confident about the odds, he could probably manage two on one but three was a tad more…. Difficult ‘yeah lets go with that’ He held within a chuckled as he smiled amusedly at the bandit woman.

“Well you see, there was a finders fee on this here chest and I aimed to collect”

“I told you he’d set up a bounty for it!” Spoke daggers to Spear, who simply grunted in acknowledgment.

“ It ain’t like we didn’ think he’d do what when he ran away. Jus’ quicker than we expected” Remarked Club who was glaring heated at Franz.

“Enough yammerin’ “ Spear snapped at her compatriots, never turning away her gaze from Franz “ Lets just skewer him and bring the loot back, the boss is waitin’ “ Ah, probably whatever chief that was in charge of these forests, of course Franz wasn’t quite certain what command structure a bandit follows if any. To him they simply seemed like a motley band of cutthroats under one boss.

“Well before you do that…” Franz spoke with a smile on his face as he know carried the chest with both hands, the trio seemed savvy about what was to happen although for Daggers his reflexes spoke faster as Franz tossed the chest at him. Spear and Club couldn’t help but turn their heads and it was the opening Franz needed to inflict of pain as he reached for a bolt with his left hand and grabbed the shaft of the Spear’s spear just behind the head, giving it a rough pull back to force Spear forward and shoved the tip of the bolt into her shoulder like a dagger, she screamed she suddenly let go of the spear and cradled her shoulder.

Franz then backhanded Club with his left hand, sending the thug stumbling over the body of his comrade. Finally he turned to Daggers who was about to respond as he dropped the chest only to have the butt of the spear shaft to blindside the side of his head sending him staggering back as he grasped his head.


Spear then tackled into Franz and together they both fell to the ground with Spear on top, trying to grapple back her spear from Franz. However she was disturbed by what she saw of Kreig’s eyes; within his eyes she saw a man who was having the time of his life and that was simply…unusual, not that there weren’t others who’s sense of fun weren’t as skewed. But to look into someone’s eyes with no fear in their eyes but instead joy for the conflict was simply unnerving.

Franz could only grin wider as he pulled back his head and jerked the spear back to force Spear forwards, before throwing his head forward and have the crown of his head meet with her nose. In a crunchy squelch her nose shattered and she rolled off him to cradle her new wound.

Franz lifted himself from the ground and was about to draw his sword only to see Daggers and Club at the ready with the intent to charge. At the moment he had no tricky surprises at his sleeve and so Franz was left with one thing to do….

Run.

He Ran deeper into the foliage of the woods, fabric and skin scratching against branch and thorns. As he got closer however he heard the voice of two others giving a bit of a shout. One sounded panicky and the other angry. Could it be a lamb accidentally wandered into the wolves den? Franz growled at that, anger at himself for not thinking there were others who could be in harms way other than himself.

Less than a couple of trills he emerged to see a bandit with an axe holding a poor long haired sod’s neck by the blade of it. With a glare that spoke outright hatred, Franz spoke out as unholstered his crossbow pistol along with a bolt, readying it as he pointed it at the bandit “You know, If you’re lookin’ for a troublemaker you might want to look to the side.”

[Nir'wei]

His dry mouth opened and closed, but nothing intelligible came out. Hot tears were streaming down his face, dripping down off the bottom of his chin while he struggled to choke his own sobs and stay strong. None of his mental relaxation, none of the breathing exercises could ever prepare him for this moment.. it was all he could manage to stay upright and not faint under the iron-tight grip of his assailant. "By Karem, you're pathetic. Not even fit to survive. It's almost like I'm doing you and this world a service by pulling you from it so you can stop insulting them." He could hear the gloating in the man's voice as he loosened his grip on the axe just a little. "You're not even going to try and fight me, are you. No struggle, no last dash. Just stand, feel sorry for yourself and hope it's quick." Nir'weis heart sank with every accusation lorded over him by this complete stranger, who had apparently taken it upon himself to give an impromptu lecture on the ways of the world. It was true, he didn't have any wish to fight.. all he wanted to do was to leave, to go back home and to live out his life in peace, enjoying himself. What right did he, or anyone else have to judge him for wanting to spend the rest of his life not murdering others over the most minute of matters? Nir'weis fists started to clench and a still anger seized the quivering in his top lip.

"S-Shut u-up," he muttered with heavy, shuddering breaths, "sädudä spulmokri."

His assailant wheeled around on the spot and shoved Nir'wei in front of himself, axe still to the side of his neck and both hands pinned behind his back. Nir'wei nearly tripped over himself but the iron grip held him in place; a human shield against the crossbow-wielding saviour that strolled from between the spindly bushes. "Oh look, your friend is here to do what you didn't have the stones to do." It was unnerving just how calm the two of them could be, both the axe-wielding deserter and this new man, as they stood at opposite sides of his body, weapons at the ready. "Unfortunately, he's going to do exactly what I say or I'm going to slice you right in front of him. First, I want my chest. Then, I want your weapons. Then, I want you to turn around and walk back to Andaris city and never come back here. In that order." The man left no part of his body exposed, adeptly disguising himself behind Nir'wei as a perfect shield. "If you make a single wrong move I will kill him and honestly, I don't need him to be alive to use him as a shield.. in fact, it makes it a lot easier because he won't squirm as much. So, for the sake of yourself and your friend, I'd suggest you just follow my instructions."

This wasn't good. One way or another, there was a pretty high chance that he was going to get seriously injured.. or potentially killed. As much as he wanted to help one way or another, the slightest tilt of his head could end in some serious damage.. and a sudden jerk, decapitation. The best he could do was sit and hope that everything worked out.

"Shut up." An alien calm settled his furiously beating heart and Archailist crawled up onto his saviour's shoulder. "You weren't brought here to sit down, when the time comes to stand. You won't spend your life avoiding fighting.. because if you do, it won't be a long life." In a spur of the moment, Nir'wei lifted one leg and slammed his heel into the middle of his assailant's foot. It wasn't much. Just enough to make the axe's grip at his neck loosen enough that he could throw his head backwards and smash it with all of his meagre force into his assailant's face, hopefully disorienting it with a cry of fear. If anything, he'd likely just secured his own death with that little outburst. But at least he'd done something. He could feel a bit of warm comfort spreading from Archailist as he scrambled away from the reeling deserter.

[Griffin]

Nir'Wei

Story 5/5
Collaboration 5/5
Structure 4/5
Fame N/A
Basic Knowledge
Nature: Not always a friend
Unarmed combat: Backwards headbutt
Bandits: In the Grimvale
Bandits: Looking for a chest
Bandits: Think you have the chest
Specialized Knowledge
Unarmed combat: A well placed kick
Unarmed combat: Harder when you start from the ground
Injuries
Congratulations, you will fill bruised and a bit stiff in the back for two trials!

Franz Messer

Story 4/5
Collaboration 3/5
Structure 2/5
Fame +3 Killing a bandit
Basic Knowledge
Mercenary: Keep alert to surroundings
Mercenary: Your patrons sigil
Running: Harder in the Grimvale
Unarmed: Headbutt
Specialized Knowledge
N/A

► Show Spoiler

Notes
It's a shame this thread was cut short as I think the interaction between Nir'Wei and Franz would have been interesting as they'd only just reached that point. Both characters had contributions which added humor to the thread and lifted it. Just some difficulties made it harder to read, which is a real shame as the details were lovely and the thread had so much potential for action and continued excitement and danger!

For Nir'Wei I'd advise double checking who the speaking tags are referring to. If the there is more than one man in the scene and using 'he' to describe actions of one man, check that it's clear who is 'he' in which instance. For both, one simple change to 'structure' is the use of ... - to indicate a pause. Always three, never more and never less.

Franz, I enjoy the shorter paragraphs to signify a change in pace and subject but be careful when there are a lot of people as it can be confusing to read who is doing or saying what and when, which distracts from the writing. I think in this instance it was harder because he'd named the attackers after weapons- hilarious, but harder to keep track of people and their weapons.

Any questions, please ask. I'm hopeful there will be more threads between these two, so we can see where it goes!