Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Tigers and Ravens [1x1]

The demon laughed and nodded his head, fishing in his bag for he canteen. "Yes, very... Spirited bunch. Very animated. They have a large chunk of land up near the summit." he knew this because one of his former slaves now lived with them. "I like them... Very angry group, I can get a days worth of energy by sitting next to Don Ulfrik for just five minutes." He laughed and pulled out the canteen Nd handed it to the dog, ignoring Hramn's snort for now. Hey, he had put it away!

"Snakes and rats, I would say sounded like a charming dinner date if I didn't already know you didnt care for breasts. Either way sounds like. Splendid day indeed. What was this artifact she wanted?" He asked out of simple curiosity, catching the bum in the air and taking a sniff before biting into it. "and we should probably move on again here shortly." he nodded before fishing the memory stone Hramn had given him once upon a time and held it for a moment before letting it go.

"Unnecessarily violent." Pot calling the kettle black as it were, but he had a genuine point. He had studied the Norsemen before, and while violence ran throughout their history, it was certainly not as prominent as recent rumours made him think. Such was the Tether; a hotpot of stories. "Yes, I'm sure you can." Flat, bland tone for a moment.

He shrugged. "She was alright. To the point, paid well and could fight on her own without me having to intervene too much." He eyed the stone, but said nothing of it before remounting the warhorse again. The slave, downing his own bun, then nodded and set off again. "How much further?"

The demon have a snort and shirted his shoulders, letting the dog old the canteen for a while while he snapped the reigns and started to trot onwards "Pft, says he insane mercenary." He laughed, then swore as the horses spooked a little "Damn animals." the words were barely out of his mouth before they whinnied and bolted, shaking the rear wagon.

A loud hiss filled his ears as he tried to right the crazed animals, which were plummeting down the path as fast as they could. He turned to see a giant black naga staring him in he face. "SHIT!!" he roared, panicking and jerked the reins, sending the cart into the woods, and also flinging off the snake, but no doubt there would be more. "HRAMN!!!" the demon bellowed as he tried to get a hold on the charging beasts and steer through the trees.
The tossed naga would then turn it's eyes to the poor pup, and promptly go after him.

Hramn had just started off down the track after the canine anthro, when he heard the hiss - it came a second after he had caught the creature's scent. Wheeling around and drawing the axe from his belt, he kicked in his spurred heels and made straight for the naga itself. "Just hold on!" Wonderful advice for the demon there; sit tight, and kiss your ass goodbye, only politer.

The creature, in order to get level with Shojah, had to have been around seven or eight foot tall. It looked far more monstrous than the human-halved ones that he had seen around the Tether, and the hood added to that impression. He silently thanked the gods that Arden was used to such creatures, otherwise he would have been in the same situation as Sho'. It lunged forwards, propelled by it's thick lower coils, and aimed it's open mouth right for him. Arden reared, lashing out with his metal-shod hooves as Hramn twisted slightly in the saddle, trying to bring the axe towards it's head before anything connected.

Edit:
[Dice roll time!
Disducibus rolls 1d2 hit or miss 1 = hit 2 = miss & gets 1.
Disducibus rolls 1d10 injury severity & gets 1.
= Naga gets a scale scratch...

Disducibus rolls 1d2 hit or miss 1 = hit 2 = miss & gets 1.
Disducibus rolls 1d10 injury severity & gets 2.
= Arm nicked]

The pair collided. While he felt the pressure of having made contact go up his arm, the screech was not a pained one - in the time he had to wheel his horse away, he swiftly checked himself over. A nick through the arm of his leather coat from a fang. Good, as he had no idea just how deadly the creatures were. Getting some space between them, he then wheeled around again and made another charge. If nothing else, he was giving Shojah time to get away.

Sho, barreling through the trees and trying. Of to crash, was indeed kissing his ass goodbye. Roaring and swearing, he used a brurst of strength to yank back he reins. Rather han stopping them, like he had hoped, he only succeeded in snapping one pair of the leather strips, making the horse bolt to the left into a tree, jerking it out of he harness and crashing the cart entirely. Not, however, before the demon abandoned ship, and the wagon and overturned horse wet sliding down a ateep hill, crashing to the bottom hard, where another naga was quick to finish off he injured horse, thrashing around in he pile of sand, trash, and decomposing bodies that had spilled out of the box. "Dammit." he swore, taking a flintlock pistol from his belt and running back through the trees to try and find Hramn, the contents of the box could wait.

Another naga would come out to assist the one Hramn was fighting, and watching its comrade be attacked, the golden one would too charge forward, lashing it with claws at the horse to help its comrade.

[Edit: Dice rolls. Since I can't get on Furc ATM, I'll use an online dice roller]
Roll 1d2 for hit = 1, miss = 2; Result: 1 (Avg: 1.0) for hit to Arden
roll 1d10 for severity; Result: 9 (Avg: 9.0)

[Poor Arden xD]

The golden naga collided heavily with the warhorse, fangs and claws tearing into the horse's breast. Hramn was thrown backwards, dismounted forcibly, and landed heavily on the ground. The horse, thrashing stubbornly, provided at least a distraction for a moment before succumbing. Hramn, still on the ground for a moment, watched as the golden creature tore into it... His childhood friend, and perhaps his closest. The horse had seen him through thick and thin, surviving all that the apocalypse could throw at it, only now to be brought down by an overgrown snake. His grief and anger welled up and this time, when he felt the creature starting to stir, he welcomed it.

A thick, roiling smoke appeared in his hair and down his spine, and a tapering, long tail ending in a halberd-like shape also appeared. A low snarl rose up in his throat that turned into a deep, bubbling growl. With the axe still in hand, he lunged for the black one now that the other was distracted with the dead horse, aiming an uppercut with the axe before side-stepping sharply and lashing out with a clawed hand for the side of it's face.

[For the black naga:
Disducibus rolls 1d2 hit = 1, miss = 2 & gets 1.
Disducibus rolls 1d10 injury severity & gets 7.]

[oh nooooo ]

Sho would come barreling out of he trees just in time to see the horse fall and swore under his breath. He took off like a train after the golden one, feeling a cold creeping in his senses from Hra's minor transformation, bt he didn't have time to gauk. He would give a truly feral roar and attempt to bring his hammer down on the golden naga with some hope that the horse could be saved, though knowing it was hopeless.

[roll 1d2 to hit and got 1, roll 1d10 for severity and got 7.
Roll 1d2 to hit Shojah got 1, sev. 6]

Sho would slammed the spiked end o his hammer intone beasts side and knock him off the horse's carcass with a roar, breaking ribs and injuring the thing fair. It lashed out and clawed h across the cheat, throwing the demon back before it ran off.

The black naga would give a pained hiss as its jaw was torn from its face oh he uppercut and claws dug into its cheek. It would almost squeal and cringe away like the animal it was, and turn to flee back into the trees. It would die soon either way without use of its mouth.

Sho wild come staggering back, holding his bleeding chest and staring hard at him. "You okay? You... Yourself?"

Hramn was currently taking a 'backseat'. The creature in him depended on a host, as did all of its kind - with the loss of a host came a loss of a disguise, which made feeding far more difficult. With the black retreating and the gold now dead, it returned to the side of Arden. Judging from his movements and how he carried himself - half-crouching, hunkering over the body. It's hand extended, then rested on the animal's breast before his eyes rolled up. Visible tendrils of silver and grey threaded out from the horse, sinking into his arm. Draining the last of its life force, using it to repair what minor injuries the mercenary had sustained.

Then his eyes swivelled onto Shojah... and his lips curled up for a moment before he began to slink back towards him. Shojah, being injured, smelt of 'dinner'. Uh oh.

Sho hissed and pressed his hand tighter to his bleeding chest, knowing he had packed bandages but.. They were currently at th bottom of a steep hill somewhere in a pile of dead horse, sand, and trash. He watched Hramn go after the horse and swore, and took a step back, readying his hammer. "Not me!" he barked at him. "Remember! NOt me, it doesn't work!" he deduced this and was hoping he was right, as last time the beast had 'made a move on him', It hadn't ended up like this scene with the horse.

"I'm warning you! Come a step closer and I'll bash your head in!" he snarled, shaking his hammer in he beasts direction while making his way backwards. He didn't want to hit Hramn unless he absolutely had to.. But he wouldn't hesitate to hurt him when hat time came. "Fuck off you oversized lizard."

Hramn paused... cocked his head towards the hammer, and then seemed to 'shake it off'. Literally. The movement was like a ripple down his body from head to legs, his muscles flexing and settling again before his posture changed from stooped to upright again. The animalistic gleam in his eyes remained for a moment, before they became the usual drab grey bordering on black. Not that he looked any less vicious, with blood that was not his own dripping from his lips.

"Where is your precious parcel?" He had a horrible, nagging inkling that he knew however. Nothing could ever go right or to plan, could it?

Shojah watched the scene with a bi of a grimace. He himself had seen his family and himself transform into various sickly states bu it never ceased to make him cringe. He would continue to wield his hammer in defense until the other spoke, and even then he was wary.

"At the bottom of a fuckIng hill in the woods a little way. I don't knOw what I'm going to do with the.. Contents now. They're thrown all over the place... And all the horses are dead." he would say, looking to Arden. "All our supplies are down there too.. SO we have to go down there eventually." he growled, Pressing free hand to his chest again with a wince. "Were you hurt?"'he asked, glancing down the road... Unable to tell now which way they had come. Both sides looked he same now.

Hramn paused, then frowned. "So? We pick them up, put them in a container of some sort, then bury them. What's the damn problem?" No matter how carefully Shojah was treating them, so far as he was concerned, they were goods that had to be hidden or concealed regardless. He paused, eyeing the road. "The drag marks from the carriage hauling off go in that direction, so the opposite way..." He pointed back along the road to the left side. "...is the direction back to the Tether. Either way if we do get lost, we head for the coast then follow it around. We're bound to get to the beach sooner or later that way." Thank you, Mr Survival Expert.

"You'll understand when you see. It's not that fuckin easy." He snapped back at the angered man, feeling and feeding from his rage as well, his own aura starting to grow stronger. "Fine, we'll do down and get the supplies and come back up, easy. As far as I'm concerned the box is now fine where it is.. might throw some dirt over it, but the nagas will get into it now.. if anyone finds it.. they will assume they were passengers in a wagon and it went over the hill.." Now stating what was apparently in the box. "We need to.." He coughed into his shoulder and gripped his chest with a snarl. "Need to get.. down there fast, before they smell the horses and the.. bodies." He wheezed, taking off his armor now to remove his inner tunic and tied it around his bleeding chest tight, using it as a bandage for now, then replaced his armor. "If you're ready to fuckin go then let's mother-fuckin-go." He snapped, bending to pick up his hammer and starting to storm off into the woods, hoping he could remember the way.

Hramn, with not the best control of his temper as it was, snarled in response to the demon's triggering aura. It was fine when they got along, but with their tempers being what they were, god knows what locking them in the same room would do.

"Bodies?" His voice was flat, bland even for a moment. "Your employer is getting his balls in a twist over some bodies? Throw them over the dock and let 'em float. Burn them. Throw them into the pit where the Tether disposes of all it's piss useless slaves. There are a lot easier methods than this..." Hramn likely would have already had them dealt with. He rolled his eyes, waited until Shojah was ready, then set off after him, keeping his eyes peeled for both more naga and for signs where the carriage had come off the road.

Sho knew he needed to calm down the question was if he could; or else his anger-influencing aura would cause a snowball effect. He would get angrier, his aura would grow stonger, Hramn would grow angrier, then in turn make Shojah more angrier.. until one of them snapped. So he took a breath, and tried not to let himself take offense.

"Yes." A lie. Oh no; even Shojah knew that riding out into the woods to bury bodies when there were many other alternatives was foolish. There was something much more important actually hidden in the box. The trash was to disguise the bodies, supposedly. If someone found the box, upon finding the trash might abandon it. If not, they'd find a pile of bodies, and surely then would give up. Even if they didn't, they would be hard-pressed to find what was accutually hidden there... but Shojah wanted very much to get down there before the nagas started helping themselves to the remains.. But he tried to keep very calm and his pace even, if only slightly hurried, 'because of my chest', would be his answer if questioned- he needed bandages. "Yes I know. But I'm not about to disobey orders. I tried to reason with him but he was very adamant that it was handled this way.. I didn't question him any further.. Bad for business if you ask too many questions." He growled, following the bath of broken saplings and wood splinters to the edge of the steep hill, which was almost a vertical drop itself, with a few trees growing horizontally out of it's side. One of the horses was apparently still alive, and could be heard wheezing and whinnying faintly at he distant bottom, under the carriage. The pile of sand and bodies was the most visible thing in the dark of the trees. No sign of any nagas, yet. "One of the horses is dead, broke it's neck earlier.."

Hramn, upon hearing the sounds of the other, used it's sounds of pain to locate it in the underbrush. The cliff presented little problem. Eyeing the rock face for a few moments, he then simply crouched down, then backed himself off the edge and began clambering down - day to day business so far as he was concerned. But that was not before removing a length of rope from around his body, from where he'd had it slung over his left shoulder to right hip. Securing it on a rock, he then.. as he ascended.. began to unravel the rope as he went. It took perhaps near to ten minutes for him to descend. He held the end of the rope, then secured it to one of the thick trees near to the carriage itself. "You can climb down now!" That's right Sho, climb down the slanted, taut rope tied between two trees over a steep drop. Nothing to it.

The demon would stare at him with his brow furrowed as he went down, still, just watching. "OH what, you think I'm afraid?" He scoffed, grabbing the rope and slinging himself around to start clambering down with the use of the rope, with about as much ease and grace as Hramn had, if perhaps the tiniest bit more hesitant. He landed heavily with a grunt, wincing and pressing a hand to his chest as he pulled away. "You'll take care of that, right?" He asked, pointing to the rope, and if and when Hramn began to take the rope back, Sho would walk hurriedly over to the pile, kick over a few bodies, then finding the one he wanted, would stick his fingers down the man's maggot-lined throat and with a hard pull, pulled out a small bag that in like would have choked him. He brushed the maggots off it quickly, then shoved it down the front of his pants, between his legs. After that, he would go on pretending to inspect the bodies. "Well, there's no point in fucking with these anymore." The demon grunted, then began to walk around and look for the bag of supplies.

Hramn however, saw the gesture with the small bag. Never one to enjoy having things hidden from him at the best of times, the lingering presence of the creature only served to make his senses riled. "The fuck was that you were shoving down the front of your crotch? Don't give me any bollucks about 'too many questions', you must know as you hired me. I don't appreciate secrets off people that are lining my pockets." A challenge, and nothing less of one.

The horse nearby, still nickering and whinnying in pain, was firmly strode over to. Bracing a hand to either side of it's skull, he then placed one of his boots onto it's neck and sharply yanked up with both hands. The loud snap echoing from its back, ended the noises.

The Spaniard closed his eyes and swore under his breath as he was caught. "It's what we were REALLY burying. And he gave me specific instructions to kill my partner if they found out." He said warily, turning to him. "However, as long as you don't utter a WORD about this, I won't come after you. Just know it's fuckin important, that's all you need to know." He hoped the mercenary would leave it at that. He watched him snap the horse's neck, and he himself would pick up the bag of supplies and look through it until he found the bandages, and would proceed to start bandaging up his chest. "It's none of your concern. I'll just have to do this mission over, later. With someone more disposable."

Hramn, touchy as it was, heard the undertone of a threat back in return. His metaphorical hackles rose, and this time, he allowed the creature to stir again. While he could not control it when it decided to come out and play of it's own accord, he did reluctantly acknowledge that it was stronger than he naturally was, and had existed for at least a handful of centuries longer than he had before it had been forced against it's will (and his) into his body and soul by the genetic experiments. "Well you can tell your employer to shove his specific instructions to kill, up his arse then can't you?"

The smoke had reappeared again, but Hramn seemed more in control this time as the tail lashed behind him. "Or why not just do it yourself? We're already in the middle of fuck knows nowhere, you might as well finish it now." He then closed the distance between them, and deliberatly exposed his teeth - yes, they had become sharper over the recent months. "Without, the killing." Hramn, the mercenary with trust issues a mile long, was quite clearly not willing to find himself on someone's potential shit list just for being with the demon at a particular time. His own rooms were absent, and it would not have taken too much asking around to confirm that he had indeed been seen with the demon not two days before. A house slave might have seen them talking, might have even overheard the conversation... and the guards near to the boundary between the Tether's garden and the jungle proper certainly would have seem them leaving together.

[.. Wow, haha, typing that out made me realise just how damn suspicious Hra really is of just about everyone when he's in job-mode.]