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| King of Killers; [P] Thais/Claire | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Wed May 20, 2015 11:38 pm (234 Views) | |
| Adaeze | Wed May 20, 2015 11:38 pm Post #1 |
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The second time Adaeze felt warm breath hitting her neck, her hand was already on her weapon. Steel came out in a flash, heels pivoted, and she dug her knife into whatever was behind her. Caught a split-second glance at a dragon's face before its form dissolved into dry leaves. Her knife didn't hit anything. Keeping her knife up regardless, Adaeze looked behind her. An unseen wind kicked up some leaf litter. It spiraled into the shape of long limbs, claws, antlers. Compacted. The dragon was the size of an elephant and its scales were a matte brownish-green. Moss hung in tangled sheets from the many tines of its antlers. Adaeze spotted a pair of horns just beneath the antlers: curled like a ram. Both were black but covered in thin white etchings. Its wing-wrists and the tip of its tail were thinly feathered. This was her chance. "Who are you people?" "There is a matter of great urgency in this region." The way the dragon spoke was more like a spirit than a physical being. It didn't move its lips. The voice just rolled in from all sides of the forest. "We strongly advise you change your course so that you might address--" "No," Adaeze interrupted. "Not until I get information. Tell me who or what you people are. Or even just your name." The dragon stared at her. "The town of Creekharbor, twenty miles east of here, has detailed anthropological records. Secure their 60-page ethnography of the Choma people and then continue north as usual." Adaeze looked away and made a frustrated scoff. "You may think we are sending you on a quaint little scavenger hunt for any old Choma-related book, but nothing could be further from the truth. Creekharbor is doomed. That library is in the Murderer King's line of fire. We urge you to secure the book and leave immediately -- before the bandits pass through." To Adaeze, it sounded more like she was being warned of a natural disaster than a passing horde of baddies. Gave her a bad feeling. But the dragon's insistence that she merely take the book and leave didn't sit well with her, either. And if the dragon wasn't willing to tell her anything about itself, there was no point continuing this conversation. The teenager set forward, passing through the beast as it dissolved into newly dried leaves. |
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| Claire | Thu May 21, 2015 1:29 am Post #2 |
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"Strangers are in town, Recruit Claire." Claire's eyes fluttered open and she turned her head to look at the source of the voice. Guardsman May was standing nonchalantly on a branch Claire could have sworn was too narrow to hold her weight. "I'll get on it." "You look nice, by the way. A bit of meat on your bones and you look leagues better than that scrawny waif with sunken eyes who wandered into Creekharbor. The first of our strangers is coming in on a little boat on the creek itself. The second is wandering in a daze from another region. She'll be knee-deep in muck before long. Borrow the Taras Marshal's boat to get the second girl. Take Galea. I don't like that we've got a Marshal in town." May clambered back up into the trees. Claire grumbled and tied her top back on. She rose from the shadows that had formerly been sun and hopped down to the lower deck of her house. She pulled on a light tunic and put her guardsman's badge on. Claire prodded the listless drake resting beside her house on a colossal root. Galea woke up and cast a lazy eye upon Claire before slowly coming to a stand. The drake snuffled at Claire's outstretched hand. The recruit waved her onward and Galea stepped onto the wooden middle road and followed just behind. Water rippled out with each heavy step. Diving beetles jumped into the water before the colossal beast passed. They arrived at the opposite edge of town. Claire offered a wave to the incoming tiny blonde on a boat. The blonde waved back between her quick paddling. She reached the edge of the middle road and Claire quickly tied her down. "I'm Marshal Thais of Taras. I've got important information regarding an imminent threat to this village." The marshal shook Claire's hand with her own soaking wet one, and then drew a long black case from the boat. It rose visibly out of the water. "Can I borrow your boat? I have another person to check on. She's at the edge of the village." The marshal shrugged. "You don't have a boat of your own? I thought everyone around here would have a boat, given the water." Claire shrugged and stepped into the boat with a bit of a wobble. The marshal raised an eyebrow. "I'll show you some tricks this afternoon. Free, even." Thais offered. Claire shrugged. "I don't mind learning. Was I that bad?" The marshal offered a smile before sprinting across the tops of the posts that supported the middle road. Claire began to row. Galea tried her hardest to be a somewhat-stealthy drake as she pointed her nose down at the little figure at the edge of a mucky field. The drake tucked her wings in and watched patiently as Claire brought her little boat to the proper path. "Miss! If you wouldn't mind, take this tree root out to my boat. I'll row you into Creekharbor. I'm one of the town guard!" Claire lifted her recruit badge. In truth, she wouldn't be a full-blown guard until they managed to get her into one of the Balefire Sheriff's outlying guardsman academies. When the woman reached her, Claire held out a dripping wet hand. "I'm Claire Mairuth. The drake is Galea. Welcome to Creekharbor." |
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| Adaeze | Thu May 21, 2015 2:03 am Post #3 |
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It rained. Or at least Adaeze assumed it rained, seeing as the tiny slivers of sky were slate-grey and there were rivulets of water flowing down all the trees. The trail turned to muck which lasted long after the storm ended. Any kind of hill -- including the ones made of the tangle of Norwood roots -- created temporary streams and waterfalls that Adaeze had to slog through just to get around. She wasn't sure if there was even a road anymore. Part of her wondered if she'd missed Creekharbor already. Why am I doing this, again? What could possibly be in a Chomai ethnography in some podunk Norwood town that I don't already know? And besides, it wasn't like the dragons to be so adamant about this. They had always emphasized she use her own discretion in choosing what to save and how. But this time it felt like they were asking her to do this -- or ordering her. Adaeze picked through a sort-of clearing. The canopy still covered the sky, but the vegetation wasn't nearly as dense. She stuck to the root systems, but occasionally was forced to pick up a few pounds of mud caked to her boots. The teenager was in the process of scraping mud off her soles when she heard movement in the distance. She squinted her eyes and saw a rowboat plodding up near a series of boardwalks connecting the root systems at the edge of the field. Adaeze decided to approach. The drake and the guardsman seemed friendly enough. The Chomai girl lowered her long jacket's hood. She didn't smile, but did gave a nod as both a greeting and an acknowledgement. Careful not to slip, Adaeze made her way to the edge of the tree root, crouched down, and then awkwardly entered the rowboat. As soon as the little watercraft teetered from the uneven distribution of weight, the girl released a small surprised noise and clambered to grab the rim of the boat. Once she was more or less comfortable in a boat -- it was her first time in one, she realized -- Adaeze stared at Claire's offered hand. She shook the guardsman's fingers with just her own: a weak, brief gesture. It didn't occur to her that she ought to say something. Instead, she rode along while quietly looking around. The whole village was flooded. A network of boardwalks facilitated travel between the buildings, but a lot of people rode in boats. The Chomai scanned the area for any hint of a library. Not even a hint of one where she was being pulled. Actually, Adaeze had a few questions about this situation. Why was a guardsman here to pick her up? Where was she going to take her? Was she under arrest? And why was a girl Adaeze's age working as a guardsman, with a pet Thunder Drake no less? Thunder Drakes weren't native to this region. "Is there a library?" Adaeze's voice was small, far smaller than the one she'd used to address the dragon. She also took careful pains to mask her Istani accent, to speak Common with the same ease as her mothers, but that had the drawback of making her words more monotone than they usually were. |
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| Claire | Mon May 25, 2015 7:02 pm Post #4 |
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Claire assisted the young woman into the boat. She was clearly Istani, and her slightly awkward manner of speaking was indicative of not a poor education but how uncomfortable she was. Claire took a nice, easy paddle instead of one with the urgency she had originally planned. "A library? No, not at all. The closest we have to a scholar is Druid Verlin. He's a bit of a crabby sort but he might have a big stash of books or know who else has a pile of them." Claire didn't say much else during the paddle. They reached the town a few minutes later, and Claire moored the boat next to what passed for a jail. She offered to help Adaeze out of the boat before walking into the squat building. The front half was wood but the back half was brick, and set into a small root hill. Inside, May and John had just begun talking to the Marshal. "I'm Marshal Thais of Taras. As I was just telling John, May, the Murderer King is likely going to move through this area. The monster had scraped along the outskirts of the Taras Agricultural districts before making her normal summer move back to the area around Cascadia. She's been heading this way. I honestly don't know if she'll actually come here, the environment is...damp, which would make moving her horde difficult. But there is the chance, and from what we can see the Basin is the best way through this particular segment of Norwood." Thais had a deadly serious look on her face. May and John did as well. "We'll ask for reinforcements from the Distant County Sheriff's office. And we've got you..." John started, the worry clear in his voice. "I have strict orders to evade the Murderer King and continue warning communities ahead of their movements. I'd suggest an evacuation, you have a week. The county seat of Distant County is fairly fortified, from what I hear." Thais replied. "None of the citizens here have the means to move, and the Balefire government doesn't support refugees, even if they are their own citizens. We'll message for reinforcements. May, get Messenger Spots in the air." "You can't stay here." "We don't have a choice. We'll call an urgent town meeting and hopefully the vote will go in the right direction, but Creekharbor is stubborn. We've dealt with enough bandits, I don't know how to explain to them that May, Claire, Galea and I just aren't enough this time." "You don't understand. You can deal casualties to the Murderer King's horde, but the King doesn't care. Those that follow the King are looters, and beyond what I recognize as her close group, she won't care about a hundred dead looters. You have to leave. This isn't a rational enemy." Thais slammed her fists into a heavy oaken table. Claire cast a nervous look to Adaeze. May appeared with a Spotted Kestrel and quietly loaded a letter into bird's backpack. She loosed it out the window. "John, I can't support us even staying here. If the civilians aren't going to go as a group, we should get who will move and ignore the people who won't." "We can't operate by your grim Istani logic here. This is Norwood." The argument continued. Claire looked to Adaeze. "We should get you, at least, out of town. Let's find Verlin, he's probably at the docks studying diving beetles." |
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| Adaeze | Mon May 25, 2015 8:08 pm Post #5 |
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Adaeze's back foot slipped on the side of the dock, but thankfully Claire had been helping her up -- she didn't take a dive and ended up climbing out of the boat successfully. The awkward silence was mercifully short afterward. All memory of her embarrassing blunder was wiped away as soon as they stepped in on a conversation between town officials. Adaeze's eyes went straight to the small woman wearing the standard getup of a Taras Marshal. Wide-brimmed hat, greatcoat, badge -- and a bonus. The Chomai carefully maneuvered herself in the room so that she was standing a couple people over from Marshal Thais' side. Still listening to what was being said, Adaeze snuck some glances at the large case hanging from the woman's back. At one point she even felt bold enough to lean back and get an even better look. Weapon case. Greatsword. Looks like a bulky version of Nkiruka's claymore rig. Two blades. She's strong. Maybe not human. Name sounds familiar. Her attention was brought back to the conversation when Thais spoke again to urge them all to evacuate. They had a week, she said. That got Adaeze thinking. She stopped meeting people's gazes. Put her knuckles against her chin, staring at some point in the distance, considering the additional thoughts the other guardsmen had to contribute. Of particular interest was the phrase "grim Istani logic." The casual, almost idiomatic way it was delivered made anger flash across Adaeze's eyes. That message was probably lost on its speaker. Adaeze was accustomed to being an element of the background, and that was exactly what she had done here as well. Claire and Adaeze left to go find the druid. The Chomai girl had wanted to say something, but didn't like the pressure of so many important people listening and looking. As soon as they were alone, Adaeze nudged Claire's shoulder with her hand to get her attention. "We have a week, she said. What if we could find a way to change the horde's course? What-- what if we could actually kill the Murderer King before she came here?" |
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8:20 AM Jul 11

