Poacher's Pandemonium [Zal]
In the last weeks, many things happened. There was a stampede of rampaging Rihogs. There were Poachers, the ones who caused this and that had their camp near Easthaven. There were fights in these camps to push the poachers back to their mainstay, which worked out and the remaining poachers fled back to their base. The Warehouses in YellowSeed, they are the storage rooms of the countless Poachers that were harassing Easthaven last. One of these warehouses was near the sea, where a creature was lurking, alarmed by all the ruckus that came from these in the last days. This creature hasn’t heard about what was going on in Easthaven, nor that the said warehouses were in the possession of poachers. The only thing it heard were the screams of them getting slayed and their blood dripping in the sea.
Zal swam just beneath the surface, closer to the warehouses and listened, trying to understand what was happening. Due to all the screaming and talk, he quickly understood that there were poachers and people who fought against those. Just like most Elyxians, Zal had a deep hatred for poachers and decided he would help the people fighting against them. Zal swam to the jetty, where a few people were fighting too. He held his head just a little above the water and some of the Elyxians noticed him. Luckily the ones who noticed him weren’t Poachers. Those Elyxians fought the poachers so close to the water that Zal could reach them. And Zal did reach them. He bit two of them in the leg, knowing his poison would do the rest, and grabbed the last one's tail to pull him into the water with him. While the two poachers on the jetty broke down from the poison, Zal pulled the last one to the ground of the sea, until he drowned. When Zal swam up to the surface again, the Elyxians waited for him.
“That was good work, thank you!” a brown-grayish one said, before storming back into the warehouses to fight more foes. Zal crawled out of the water and looked in the direction of the Warehouse gate. There was yelling and shots to be heard. Slowly Zal walked towards the gate, ready to fight more poachers. When he had almost reached the entrance, there was a snap and a sharp pain shooting through his body. Zal let out a painful hiss and looked down, to see that he had stepped into a bear trap. The pain was immense, but Zal survived worse. Still, it hurt a lot and Zal hissed the whole time while struggling to get the trap off. He was interrupted by a gentle voice.
“Do you need some help?” it asked. Zal didn’t hear the Elyxian approaching and hissed while trying to back up in reflex. This made him pull on his trapped hand and he yelled in pain. Ready to bite, Zal finally looked up at where the voice came from and saw a brown Elsin. They looked worried and kneeled down to Zal.
“My name is Arion~ Let me help you…” he said and carefully grabbed both sides of the trap, in an attempt to bend it open. Arion wasn’t able to do so though and Zal let out a sigh.
“It’s okay…I just…” the Lurker started, but Arion shook his head.
“No ill get you out if it dont worry!” he said and stormed back into the warehouse. Zal was confused at first but understood that Arion was getting help when the Elsin exited the warehouse together with an Aphex and walked in Zals direction.It was the brown-gray Aphex that Zal already met on the jetty.
“I’m Stryker, Arion told me what happened.” he simply said and kneeled next to Zal. Stryker bent open the trap with ease and released Zal who let out a relieved sigh.
“There we go~ Those traps are really evil…” Stryker said while throwing the closed trap in the water, so it couldn’t do any harm anymore. Zal licked his wound, it was deep and stung badly. Arion sat his little bag on the ground next to Zal.
“I have bandages and first aid utensils, I can help you.” he offered and Zal nodded. The Elsin started to clean the wound first. It hurt as he disinfected it and Zal hissed in pain.
“I am sorry…” Arion said but Zal shook his head.
“It’s mandatory.” the Lurker answered. Arion carefully rubbed a paste on the wound and the pain was becoming less.
“What is that?” Zal asked.
“Oh it’s a medicine I made from different herbs and plants~ It helps your body heal.” Arion answered proudly. The Elsin then bandaged the wound with clean cloth and took a deep breath.
“Okay~ It should heal in no time!” he said and smiled.
“Thank you, really.” the Lurker said and carefully took a few steps. It really hurt a lot less and felt better.
“Now…let’s get some more of the people responsible for this!” Zal said and charged into the warehouse, followed by Arion and Stryker. Inside, Zal quickly overlooked the situation to determine who is a friend and who a foe. Once he was sure, Zal pounced at a poacher, biting their throat. The Poacher let out a gruesome gurgling noise before falling over, only twitching a few times before staying motionless. Zal used this ‘tactic’ for a while, but landing on his front arms wasn't good for the wound. After about 10 times, the pain started to become worse again. Arion noticed that and walked over to Zal.
“Hey…you should go home to heal, we can do the rest, you already helped a lot~” he said in a friendly tone and Zal nodded in agreement. It was time to go home and so he did, fastly but carefully so he won’t get hurt further. Zal curled up in his cave to heal. He quickly fell asleep, with the calming knowledge of having done good today.