Arc 716, 11th of Saun
Helping to make maps wasn’t the absolute worse job in the world. It was certainly better than some of the nonsense Night had to do in order to survive on a day to day basis. She didn’t get the worst pay and her life wasn’t at immediate risk, though she was certain something mean and ugly was bound to raise its head and soon. But that had never bothered Night. She was born and raised a fighter and she intended to die as one as well. Monsters were the name of her game. But right now due to her inability to draw for the life of herself she was stuck with a small team of people who were drawing while she flew up and down over and over having to describe everything in perfectionist level detail. “I see a road going north but there’s a tree obstructing further passage,” she reported back with a yell standing atop a cliff. She felt uneasy in this situation. Because she couldn’t really fly with her cloak on she had to resort to wearing what she usually did when she went flying. Which just so happened to be a light duty leather top to protect the top half of her body from attacks and some leather greaves with half brutally hacked off due to how annoying they felt on her almost comparatively harpy like legs. The greaves being as such got cut off just a little under her knees and even that was remarkably uncomfortable. Her talons dug into the stone as she watched the people staring up at her look back down at their various pieces of paper and start to scribble things down.
Nightshade sighed, knowing it would be so much easier to just be doing this herself. But quills and Night just didn’t get along, ever. If she didn’t spill the ink onto herself it was inevitable for the paper to be in ruins instead. When she finally did manage to get something done her penmanship was only slightly able to be read if not on the side of illegibility. Her drawing skills were even worse, whenever she tried to draw something it always ended up looking like some kind of angry scribble monster that was begging for the sweet release of death. As such all her drawings were promptly burnt moments after creation. It was a sin to waste precious trees on such wretched beasts, so it must be cleansed with fire.
“You can go ahead and come down now,” one of the people shouted up at her and she hopped off her ledge beating her wings. Flying wasn’t the hard part, it never was. Flying was easy, flying was natural; anything with wings if it got thrown off a cliff could nearly 100% of the time fly. That’s why mother birds do it all the time. Flying well and landing without breaking your face was an entirely different question. Without the complete instincts of an Avriel running in her body flying was much harder, choppy without practice and her lands were a sight to behold. Behold the failure of the half Avriel!
She heard a couple snickers as once again she stumbled and fell face first into the ground. She bite down her prideful, arrogant remark and stood up brushing herself off. “What else?” She asked through gritted teeth.
“Can you go up that cliff there and see if the old sign post is still in place. It’s a long walk and we can get done faster if you just flit on up there and check for us,” one of them said with a tiny grin.
Okay. Now they were doing this to spite and tease her. It was official. They were fucking with her. She beat her wings heavily on takeoff making a couple of the idiots who didn’t see her frustration coming lose their papers. But most were able to hang on despite dropping some of their tools. “Do it for the money. Do it for the money. Do it for the money,” she repeated over and over to herself like some kind of sick mantra. She perched on the ledge and looked around. “I don’t see it,” she shouted back but continued to look anyway. “Oh wait! There it is, it got knocked over. I’ll be right back, just give me a couple minutes,” she said jumping off her perch and swooping down towards the fallen sign post. She still stumbled slightly and didn’t land in the right place, but for the first time she managed not to fall right on her face or rear end, so that was an accomplishment and another mark towards aerial grace.
“Looks like someone straight up, up rooted this thing,” she muttered to herself seeing the hole in the ground the sign post use to occupy. The sign post itself was a couple feet away was teeth marks on the base. She picked up the sign post that was remarkably heavy for its size and her strength. “Oh man,” she said heaving the thing up and placing it back in its hole. A couple stones dragged over for support ensure its ability to properly stand. “There,” she said feeling pretty proud of herself
An eerie feeling slowly came over the woman as she noticed a spot of red light in her peripherals. She turned slowly trying not to move to fast. She spread her wings slowly ready to use them to leap out of the way, her hand found its way to her blade. The creature leaped from the darkness of the shadows cast by trees and dense underbrush and she beat the air with her wings. Using the momentous she easily jumped out of the way of the much slower and shambling creature. In the light it was far easier to tell this beast was a human formed Ratherion. It made a low gurgling sound which turned into a blood curdling scream. Nightshade flinched at the sound fight or flight instantly taking over as adrenaline pumped through her blood stream.
It was only one lone Ratherion so she instead chose fight instead of flight. But if it continued to be left alone it could cause problems later or attract more. It lunged once more so she dogged to the side getting scraped slightly by the tip of its blade. She feinted behind and it and a strong wack of her blade took out its sword arm. The Ratherion gurgled and made a screech like noise as it lurched forward. Down a sword arm it was now trying to claw her with its remaining arm. She side stepped one more time and extended her left leg letting it stumble and trip all over itself. “No to terrifying now, are we?” She muttered menacingly placing her foot onto its back and thrusting down with her sword. It easily went through the bad armor and destroyed its heart, the creature stopped moving.
“But what did that…” she muttered to herself glancing once more at the claw marks and teeth marks responsible for the uprooting of the sign post. The Ratherion was only happenstance. She inspected the claw marks once more but she couldn’t identify what creature they were from. She took out a piece of paper and tried to sketch them. It turned out poorly but at least it would help her remember what had happened, she quickly shoved the drawing into her clothes. She flew back over the ledge and to her group which all looked at her with curious eyes.
“We heard some strange noises. What happened? Why are you hurt?” One said noticing the cut coving her cheek. It had stopped bleeding but in any case she needed something to treat it.
“I put the knocked down sign post back up. It had some pretty strange marks at the bottom. After I was done putting it back up a Ratherion came out of the shadows and attacked me. Any of you got disinfectant cream?” She finished her story.
One of the members of the group handed her a container of sorts with said cream which she liberally applied to the cut. There was no way she was letting herself get sick and die because a Ratherion of all things nicked her. “The Ratherion must have pulled up the sign. That’s all for today, let’s head back to the shop and get you paid,” the man finished patting her on the back slightly. “Welcome to the team newbie.”
Whatever pulled up that sign post had not been a Ratherion. That was for certain. Why would a Ratherion claw up and chew up the base of some cheap sign post in the middle of the woods near Etzos? It made no logical sense, even with how imbecilic the beast of a creature acted in her recent encounter. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. Getting paid sounded good. She took out a piece of paper and a writing utensil and slowly started to copy down one of the other maps. If she was going to get anywhere with this job she was gonna need to start practicing how to better draw and write.
Never in her life did she think that this was what she would end up doing.
