Monster Hunt
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For the first time in Arianian history, someone has escaped The 9. Yes, a fallen god is running amuck causing death and destruction on the land. Queen Annabelle has ordered the royal guard to be on the look for the creature. She has also implemented a curfew for all residents of Ariadne, dragon and human alike, to remain indoors after the hours of 9pm, for when the darkness settles upon the land...the monsters come out to play.
While the royal guard is busy hunting down such a creature, you and your friends decide to ignore the warnings of your Queen. Its up to you, she’s given you plenty of warnings. You all want to know what creepy crawlies lurk outside after 9pm. If the royal guard is involved, it might be something pretty awesome...
...Or it just might be the last thing you ever see.
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Prompt One: As soon as the last candle went out in your village, it was your chance. You ventured out from your home and met your friends on the edge of the forest. The guard would be out in full force to try and hunt down the monster that was plaguing the lands. Having no fear whatsoever, or maybe just pure stupidity, you venture into the dark, torchlight in hand (or paw) and begin your search for whatever the guard is hunting. You travel deep, and as darkness settles in you find the forest is even darker at night and more creepy than you originally thought. You all eventually lose your way and begin arguing. All the while, something slinks through the darkness and for a moment one of your buddies thinks they saw a hand. Daylight is far from now, you have to make a choice. Your friends are making you the leader. What do you?
-Try and retrace your steps.
-Find a spot to make camp until morning.
-Argue over who decided to make you the leader and make one of your buddies decide what to do instead.
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Choice 2: Find a spot to make camp.
*artwork found on Stein's page*
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You go with your gut and decide its too dark to try and maneuver the forest this late. You have no choice, you MUST make camp for the night. You and your friends decide your next course of action is to start building a shelter. You decide to start collecting twigs, as you bend over to pick up a couple logs, you look back up and scream. A face with blood red eyes stares at you and you fall back flat on your ass. Ouch. However, upon coming to your senses you discover that its just a...cat mask? You pick it up and decide it might be fun to scare your stupid friends with later. You’ve found one Cat Mask.
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Prompt Two: After all the mucking about, you and your friends finally have some sort of home base. You ultimately have no choice, you MUST wait for morning. Its starting to get cold and you all came out with hardly any supplies. You collectively agree to start a fire and conserve your torchlights, as you don’t have extra batteries. As the night drags on you try to comfort each other by telling stories about gods and goddesses. Everything is going well until one of your buddies turns it into a horror story, about the fallen gods who are known for being dangerous. Almost as if on queue, your watch beeps, its midnight. The supposed haunted hours will start around 1am and last until well after 3am, however it already seems like you’re being stalked. The hair on the back of your neck (or scales) stands on edge, something breathing down the back of your neck. Your friends are all staring at you in horror, they see a pair of eerie glowing green eyes behind you sticking out from the darkness.
Well what now, hero? Choose wisely.
-You’re not afraid. You attack.
-You all stay perfectly still.
-You run.
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Choice 2: Stay perfectly still.
Stein grumbled for the lack of forethought, eyes flicking to the trees as if seeing shadows everywhere - which there were - and paranoid he was being watched - which he was. It didn’t help his mentality that Girl had slunk off and joined him when he’d explicitly told her to stay home with Rum. Silverthorn decided he needed more help than the kiddos - he was perfectly FINE on his own, thank you very much, but the munchkin always ignored what he thought. Why should that change now? The orange dragon sighed. He pulled Girl from playing with Aeotep’s tail - again - and plunked her into his lap firmly, then glared at his friend for deciding to tell ghost stories - AT ONE IN THE MORNING. Silverthorn easily started a fire and everyone huddled around her handiwork. Strain once again ignoring how the firelight from Aeotep’s crystal flickered oddly - or was it just his paranoia talking again?
”Lupa’s tits, did you have to start that nonsense about the Fallen again?” he growled, but was only half-heartedly angry at his companions. He ignored Silverthorn’s appalled shush and continued building up the dead brush around them in a sort of half wall to ward off the less aggressive creatures. The best he could do with the more aggressive ones would be hope his fire scared them off - but it did nothing against ghosts - he was steadfastly NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT. ”What? Did I get something on my face again?” he growled, noticing immediately when his blue TOTALLY NOT MATE twitched and looked past him. ”Aeotep. Stop it!”
”Um. Not doing nothing, buddy,” the black dragon croaked. For all his crystal was FLOATING, the dragon sure looked afraid of his own ghost story. Wait…
Stein turned to look behind him and blinked at the glowing green eyes in the bushes. ”Oh, it’s you,” the orange dragon mumbled, then shifted to push Girl into the munchkin’s arms, who easily covered the little one protectively. ”What now? Who’s there? It’s rude to just hide behind the shadows, you know,” Stein growled, stamping a foot on the ground.
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You stay perfectly still with your friends, hoping whatever it is behind you has piss poor eyesight. You even go the extra mile and hold your breath, turning blue in the face. You close your eyes before opening them and realizing that a dragon, not a monster, is staring you down. “You done?” He replies. You exhale relieved as you see Nathaniel Raffe, Captain of the Guard before you. You’re not quite sure if you should be grateful he found you or scared he’s going to arrest you. Nat proceeds to chew you all out anyways for being out here in the dark. While he’s doing such, you see that his satchel is torn, probably from trekking around the forest. You see a gold coin spill from his satchel and while he’s yelling at your buddies, you carefully scoop it up for yourself, staring at the Queen’s face on it. You put it in your pocket. He’s rich, he won’t miss it...you hope. You’ve found one Exotic Token.
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Prompt Three: Now that Nat is done scolding you all, he decides to stay with you all and help. However, you have questions of your own and decide to question him as to why he is all by himself. Nat doesn’t like the hostile tone you give him. You swallow hard as he snarls that he became separated when something large and grotesque, as born from hell itself, attacked his men. He is the only survivor and upon closer inspection you see he is bleeding from gaping wounds on his sides, deep claw marks. Just great, theres a psycho monster out here and you have a companion just dripping “eat me.” Nat says if you can find the river it will lead you back to town. However, your friends think you should leave him as he could get you killed. Nat appears to be in pain and will most likely not make it back unless you all help him. Meanwhile, something slinks through the brush, a low bellow. Nat hears it and snarls. Almost as if on queue, something leaps from the brush and tackles the blue and white Captain. He struggles as a massive black figure looms over him. You have to make a decision NOW.
-Leave him to die.
-Help Nat.
-Do nothing.
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Choice 3: Help Nat.
Stein rolled his eyes when the shadow figure resolved into Nat - HE’D KNOWN IT WAS NAT ALL ALONG, after all. The orange dragon huffed in annoyance and hides a hand behind his body using the ‘blah blah blah’ motion as Nat scolded everyone for being out late. Of course it was a bad idea, but that didn’t mean Girl couldn’t get used to the realities of life. Danger happened. Stein badly wanted to repeat ‘you done?’ at Nat, but refrained - technically the male WAS his superior, even though only the Queen could actually fire him. ANYWAY. He gave a faint grin and scooped up the coin, sticking it in one of his many pockets and innocently pulled the rest of Nat’s pouch from him to hand back to the dragon later.
The orange dragon ignored the glare Nat shot his way for all the questions and shrugged. ”What? I should be aware what’s going on, too right? I mean, yeh, they can go home, by all means. Girl. Go home.” He aimed the last at his daughter, who just grinned at him through Silverthorn’s short legs and Stein rolled his eyes, wiggling his fingers at her. Amusement aside, the male frowned when he scented blood and he sniffed, then offered a healing balm from his pouch to the older dragon. ”This might help your problem there, sir,” Stein offered, MOSTLY not sarcastic. He really was worried about the man - not to mention what could DO that much damage.
Stein whirled a second before the shadow attacked, snarling and immediately lowered his head and rammed into the mysterious being without a second thought. ”Get Girl Out Of Here!” the dragon snarled. For once, Silverthorn didn’t argue, her blind eyes wide and she pushed the youngling atop her back and pulled Aeotep to help her get to safety while Stein and Nat had the creature occupied.
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“COWARDS!” You yell at your friends as they run for their lives. You’re scared, but its not right to leave Nat by himself in the state he’s in. The white and blue dragon struggles in the grasp of what you can only describe as a large black blob at the moment. “M-My sword!” Nat grunts. You spot his sheath on the ground and inside an immaculate shining blade. Without even thinking you take the blade out and you swing it with all your might as it collides with the black mass. It roars in pain before rearing up and swinging its large tail...no...hand?! And it sends you flying. You hit a tree hard before slumping to the ground, a winded, tired mess, but you still have that sword in hand. You’ve found Nat’s Sword.
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Prompt Four: You wake from your dazed state of mind to find you are staring directly into the eyes of hell itself. A large Arianian with a split jaw and bleeding eyes stares down at you. He roars in your face, man does that breath stink. He is shrouded in dark magic, something outlawed long ago. He wreaks of death and the most disturbing part is his never ending bleeding eyes...yes three eyes. His head jitters as it turns from side to side as if he cannot control his body movements, yep this is something like out of the exorcist alright. A paw is placed firmly on your chest, he has NO intentions of letting you up. However, all is not lost as you hear more footsteps, several footsteps and you see...are those torchlights? You have to make a choice, do you risk calling out to whoever it is or do you try and deal with the brute atop you yourself?
-Call out.
-Punch his lights out.
-Do nothing.
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Choice 1: Call out.
The orange dragon blinked, then groaned as even that movement hurt his eyeballs. Slowly, he reached up and felt his head, sure there was a knot in the back and was only MILDLY ALARMED to find his horns were intact - but he was in human form. AND THERE WAS A DRAGON SITTING ON HIS CHEST. "What the kriff?" he muttered, then regretted it immediately when the fetid breath of the monster atop him only growled. He faintly tried to wave the smell away and gagged, not bothering to hide his reaction as he was in serious danger of throwing up. His head felt like it had been split like a melon, he was human against a dragon AND he still had no clue just what he’d attacked. Was Nat dead? He hoped not. That’d make him the Captain of the Guard and that was a BAD IDEA. ”You, uh, might want to get that looked at,” he grunted. Forcing his emotions back and stared - or tried to - at the dragon above him. Which eye did you look at? There were THREE OF THEM.
His ears pricked at the faint telltale footfalls somewhere nearby and he blew out his nose, trying to avoid inhaling the stench…or losing his dinner in the grass. ”Hey! Idiot! Get off me!” Stein yelled. If he was going to go down, maybe those nearby would at least realize the beast was there and be able to fight it off better than he and Nat had. He wasn’t exactly a good Samaritan, but he also didn’t want to let the monster know there were others there. It was a mixed bag, ok?
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You scream as if your life depends on it. The creatures roars and rears up, jaws wide open and ready to silence you. All seems dark when suddenly the beast is tackled off you, a blur of white fury roars and a struggle is heard. A loud screech emits and the large black beast clasps its paws over its head and falls to its knees before it falls to the ground unmoving. The sound of that screech is familiar and when someone comes over to help you up, you know why. Queen Annabelle pulls you to your feet and she looks at you, scoldingly. “You have a lot to explain, kid.” She looks at the creature on the ground as her guardsmen chain it up. She looks at you again before she tosses something to you and walks off, looking for anyone else. You open your hands to find a small bag of coin. She’s rewarded you for “finding” the creature. You’ve found 500 Dallions.
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Conclusion
Queen Annabelle took you back to the manor, you’ve found yourself stuck in her office awaiting an answer as she fills out some paperwork. Its become a bit awkward with you just sitting here. After a long while the Queen signs her name on a form and she exhales heavily before sitting back in her chair and looking at you. “You have many questions about that creature you encountered in the woods. I’m prepared to answer them, so long as you’re willing not to repeat it.”
She seems pretty serious.
You hesitantly shake your head, nodding in agreement, but before she can speak the door opens and in walks a man with black hair and familiar green eyes. His arm is in a sling and he smiles down at you, “Thanks for the help.” Anna smiles, “Nat, I’m glad you’re alright.” Yes, the bastard survived, he’s tough as nails. “Ma’am, our guard is ready to return Bal’Hammon to The 9 if you’ve signed off on it.” Anna looks at you, she can see the shock and awe in your eyes. Nobody ever escapes The 9 and Bal’Hammon is just a legend your parents used to tell you about. “I know that look, I promised you an explanation.” She moves to sit on her desk in front of you. “So let’s talk about the Fallen God of Pestilence and why he’s here on Ariadne.”