05-11-2016, 07:30 PM
The duo continued walking through the caverns, remaining completely quiet. As they descended deeper into the mines, the formerly cool air was replaced by a bit of a mist, followed by the sounds of dripping water like that of a normal cave. The walls had grown slick and moist, probably from the melted ice and snow that used to cover the walls. Their boots occasionally found themselves in small puddles, splashing the water onto their clothes. The supports holding the rocks above their heads were visibly decayed, the dampness of the surrounding environment not doing much to help the old and outdated columns. More than once, the gunsmith and the sentry had to stop as soft rumbles occasionally echoed throughout the mines, gravel falling from above. They treaded lightly, determined not to disturb the unstable mine.
After a few minutes of walking, a stench filled the atmosphere, filling the pair’s nostrils. It smelled of death and mucus. The odor grew more and more as they walked, becoming almost unbearable by the time they were within a long hall. By that point, the gunsmith was loudly wondering what the heck it was while Danish was doing his best not to breathe it in.
Turning a corner, they both figured out its source. Laying within an intersection was the body of a large creature. From a distance, it appeared to be sleeping, but the smell gave it away.
The gunner drew closer to it, groaning a bit as he examined the cadaver. The dwarf stayed back, his face turning green.
The carcass had grey fur all over its body, parts of it matted with blood-red goo. The red stains surrounded large holes in its throat, blood spilling from its neck and onto the stony ground. Its torso was sliced open, its intestines sloshed onto the floor near the green man’s shoes.
Looking towards its head, Ballad saw a pair of ram horns just behind beady black eyes. It stared out into space, as if daydreaming.
“This must be a tauntaun….” He muttered, trying to ignore the churning in his stomach. He looked behind him, seeing the dwarf coming closer.
“Yep, that’s a tauntaun…” He said, drawing back after one quick look. He squeezed his nose, shaking his head.
The gunsmith kneeled down, deliberately looking away from the animal’s shredded stomach, “It appears that it is latterly deceased…” he said.
“How do ya figur’?” The sentry groaned, sliding his down to his mouth.
“Well, it isn’t a skeleton, so that means it must have departed a short period of time anterior to when we arrived,” He answered, standing up, “you don’t opine a wampa brought about its demise, correct?”
The tiny escort coughed, walking a short distance away from the cadaver, “I wouldn’ put it at the bottom o’ my list o’ things that coulda killed it.”
“Superb..”
“Superb? How is that superb? It’s a wampa!”
“My task is to slay a wampa. If it is down here, then that means I can complete it alongside the mining of cobalt. To quote a metaphor, I could kill two birds with one stone.”
“Gah… guess you got a point ther’..” The dwarf said, sliding his left hand towards a small knife within his boots. The gunsmith simultaneously drew his revolver, and was about to continue walking when Danish stopped him.
“Uh… troll? The gun.”
“Oh… right..” he said, sliding the gun back into his holster. Probably best we not kill ourselves…
-----------------------------
The duo continued investigating the mines, the image of the dead tauntaun still lingering in their minds. Or, at least, in Danish’s mind.
The virescent sharpshooter, however, was thinking of something entirely different. Specifically, it was what the pygmy had told him earlier on. He would never say it to the little shithead’s face, but it was hard for him to accept just how much his words reminded him of how he had acted like in the past. A man who, for a little while, had wanted nothing more than to be left to his own devices, yet seemed to constantly get himself into trouble for no reason whatsoever. Tournaments, doctors, recruitment's, assassinations… for a man who didn’t care about the state of the world, he seemed to be doing his best to have some sort of an effect on it.
He was silly back in the day, he had realized, to think his actions made no difference. In a world like this, you couldn’t ever be left alone. At some point, somewhere, somehow, you were going to do something. It was how you did it, though, that mattered, and that’s what the people of the Omniverse seemed hell bent on doing it wrong. Constant power struggles, crime, war everywhere, racism, and a generous amount of dictatorships. It was astonishing how the general public had grown accepting of this, as if it was something they had to stand.
But Ballad wasn’t going to stand for that. He was going to rework the system from the ground up after tearing the old one down. He had hoped he could get through life through ignorance, but he was wrong. Ignorance wasn’t bliss, it was just ignorance. As a man with immortality, he was going to change the world for the better. For peace and happiness and a land where no one was cruel. A world where there was no such thing as war. A world where inequality, racism, and a “wrong” opinion wasn’t even a word you’d find in the dictionary. A world of eternal peace.
If it meant having to destroy everything entirely to do it, than by God, he’d do it.
Of course, a course of action like that would require allies… and he seemed to be rather low on those...
“Psst, troll!”
The gunner glanced back towards the dwarf, seeing him pointing towards another intersection, “Ya might want to come over here.”
----------------------------------------
The gunner brought the torch forward, illuminating the large, circular room. The room was comprised entirely of stone, with several stalagmites clustered in the center of it, each of various lengths. The rocky ground was wetter than the halls that the duo had traversed, with the entire floor coated in wet slime. It was, for the most part, an unassuming little room. Except, however, for a set of glowing grey crystals on the walls on the other side of the room.
The inventor’s eyes widened, locked onto the silvery colored ores plastered on the walls. He reached up to the hilt of his pickaxe, slowly walking towards the ores. The dwarf remained near the entrance, his grip on his knife tightening as the gunsmith drew closer to the crystals.
Reaching the ores, Ballad narrowed his eyes, as if to examine it. The gray crystals were shaped irregularly, as if drawn by an amateur artist and implemented into real life. The glow they created was not from its own initiative; rather, it appeared to have been light reflecting off of the moistened walls. The light itself seemed to have been because of the gunsmith’s torch, which he had placed on the ground a moment prior. The crystal jutted out of the rock like tumors, begging to be exquisitely removed by a mining expert such as Ballad. If he wasn’t so fascinated, so completely and utterly amused by its shape and unnatural glow, he would’ve done it. But he wanted to gaze at it for a few moments, ignoring the increasingly distressed grunts from his partner and the growing stench in the air. Just one more moment of contemplation before the inevitable task of mining.
Raising his arms, he lifted his pickaxe into the air, ready to unleash the blow.
A loud, bestial grunt erupted from the entrance.
After a few minutes of walking, a stench filled the atmosphere, filling the pair’s nostrils. It smelled of death and mucus. The odor grew more and more as they walked, becoming almost unbearable by the time they were within a long hall. By that point, the gunsmith was loudly wondering what the heck it was while Danish was doing his best not to breathe it in.
Turning a corner, they both figured out its source. Laying within an intersection was the body of a large creature. From a distance, it appeared to be sleeping, but the smell gave it away.
The gunner drew closer to it, groaning a bit as he examined the cadaver. The dwarf stayed back, his face turning green.
The carcass had grey fur all over its body, parts of it matted with blood-red goo. The red stains surrounded large holes in its throat, blood spilling from its neck and onto the stony ground. Its torso was sliced open, its intestines sloshed onto the floor near the green man’s shoes.
Looking towards its head, Ballad saw a pair of ram horns just behind beady black eyes. It stared out into space, as if daydreaming.
“This must be a tauntaun….” He muttered, trying to ignore the churning in his stomach. He looked behind him, seeing the dwarf coming closer.
“Yep, that’s a tauntaun…” He said, drawing back after one quick look. He squeezed his nose, shaking his head.
The gunsmith kneeled down, deliberately looking away from the animal’s shredded stomach, “It appears that it is latterly deceased…” he said.
“How do ya figur’?” The sentry groaned, sliding his down to his mouth.
“Well, it isn’t a skeleton, so that means it must have departed a short period of time anterior to when we arrived,” He answered, standing up, “you don’t opine a wampa brought about its demise, correct?”
The tiny escort coughed, walking a short distance away from the cadaver, “I wouldn’ put it at the bottom o’ my list o’ things that coulda killed it.”
“Superb..”
“Superb? How is that superb? It’s a wampa!”
“My task is to slay a wampa. If it is down here, then that means I can complete it alongside the mining of cobalt. To quote a metaphor, I could kill two birds with one stone.”
“Gah… guess you got a point ther’..” The dwarf said, sliding his left hand towards a small knife within his boots. The gunsmith simultaneously drew his revolver, and was about to continue walking when Danish stopped him.
“Uh… troll? The gun.”
“Oh… right..” he said, sliding the gun back into his holster. Probably best we not kill ourselves…
-----------------------------
The duo continued investigating the mines, the image of the dead tauntaun still lingering in their minds. Or, at least, in Danish’s mind.
The virescent sharpshooter, however, was thinking of something entirely different. Specifically, it was what the pygmy had told him earlier on. He would never say it to the little shithead’s face, but it was hard for him to accept just how much his words reminded him of how he had acted like in the past. A man who, for a little while, had wanted nothing more than to be left to his own devices, yet seemed to constantly get himself into trouble for no reason whatsoever. Tournaments, doctors, recruitment's, assassinations… for a man who didn’t care about the state of the world, he seemed to be doing his best to have some sort of an effect on it.
He was silly back in the day, he had realized, to think his actions made no difference. In a world like this, you couldn’t ever be left alone. At some point, somewhere, somehow, you were going to do something. It was how you did it, though, that mattered, and that’s what the people of the Omniverse seemed hell bent on doing it wrong. Constant power struggles, crime, war everywhere, racism, and a generous amount of dictatorships. It was astonishing how the general public had grown accepting of this, as if it was something they had to stand.
But Ballad wasn’t going to stand for that. He was going to rework the system from the ground up after tearing the old one down. He had hoped he could get through life through ignorance, but he was wrong. Ignorance wasn’t bliss, it was just ignorance. As a man with immortality, he was going to change the world for the better. For peace and happiness and a land where no one was cruel. A world where there was no such thing as war. A world where inequality, racism, and a “wrong” opinion wasn’t even a word you’d find in the dictionary. A world of eternal peace.
If it meant having to destroy everything entirely to do it, than by God, he’d do it.
Of course, a course of action like that would require allies… and he seemed to be rather low on those...
“Psst, troll!”
The gunner glanced back towards the dwarf, seeing him pointing towards another intersection, “Ya might want to come over here.”
----------------------------------------
The gunner brought the torch forward, illuminating the large, circular room. The room was comprised entirely of stone, with several stalagmites clustered in the center of it, each of various lengths. The rocky ground was wetter than the halls that the duo had traversed, with the entire floor coated in wet slime. It was, for the most part, an unassuming little room. Except, however, for a set of glowing grey crystals on the walls on the other side of the room.
The inventor’s eyes widened, locked onto the silvery colored ores plastered on the walls. He reached up to the hilt of his pickaxe, slowly walking towards the ores. The dwarf remained near the entrance, his grip on his knife tightening as the gunsmith drew closer to the crystals.
Reaching the ores, Ballad narrowed his eyes, as if to examine it. The gray crystals were shaped irregularly, as if drawn by an amateur artist and implemented into real life. The glow they created was not from its own initiative; rather, it appeared to have been light reflecting off of the moistened walls. The light itself seemed to have been because of the gunsmith’s torch, which he had placed on the ground a moment prior. The crystal jutted out of the rock like tumors, begging to be exquisitely removed by a mining expert such as Ballad. If he wasn’t so fascinated, so completely and utterly amused by its shape and unnatural glow, he would’ve done it. But he wanted to gaze at it for a few moments, ignoring the increasingly distressed grunts from his partner and the growing stench in the air. Just one more moment of contemplation before the inevitable task of mining.
Raising his arms, he lifted his pickaxe into the air, ready to unleash the blow.
A loud, bestial grunt erupted from the entrance.
Quote:Quest: Into The Halls
Word Amount: 1,286
Okay, NEXT post I will actually get some quest requirements done.
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