06-13-2016, 03:29 PM
"There they are..." spoke Oki. A plume of smoke was rising, visible through the fog. And where smoke was, there had to be fire. He stopped the Fur-Selkie and dismounted, then waited for Amaterasu to follow him.
"You sure that that's the same group?" The kami asked as she slid off as well and helped Oki at getting it behind a few rocks, where it could wait for them.
"These plains are enormous. Taking into account how unlikely it is that two groups are so close to each other in a location so far away from any settlement, as well as that they went roughly the same way as I saw them go... I mean, I cannot pinpoint it perfectly, but I'm almost certain."
"Let's sneak up and check anyway. Just to be safe."
"I was gonna propose that anyway. We can't be certain that they really are trolls... I didn't see their faces."
"If we can slay two of them you could bring back one of their heads along with me. We could both gain access to the Inner Sanctum of Dwarvenholm. And the innkeeper still has the hide of that other wampa... plus, we can count on Urist to find us enough Cobalt for two people."
"True. Quiet now..." He grunted and bent over as his shape shifted and he turned into a dark-furred wolf, with Kuton resting on his back rather than attached to his hip. Amaterasu had to remain in human form, lacking the capability to take on wolf shape, but that was alright - her white dress concealed her from view, even with a larger figure than Oki, who rolled around in the snow to get his fur whitened. With the weapons at the ready, they snuck up, hiding behind rocks and gradually advancing towards the source of the smoke. Oki was an experienced hunter and tracker, and Amaterasu had some experience at sneaking, but even so it took them a fair share of time before they arrived. Pressing their backs against a rock, they started hearing voices.
"... don' know bout dis, mon. Dey oughta be back by now..." spoke one. A deep, monotonous voice.
"Ya be seein' stuff... Rusraz be with 'em. 'e's da best shaman o' the squad. Mighta run into a tight spot, but... nah, dey en't dead, mon... oi, Shaejin, what d'you think you be doing dere? Leave da bottle alone, yar on guard duty!" This one spoke with a stronger, more authoritarian voice. Probably a sergeant.
"Take it easy, mon. Jus' wettin' me throat... I ain't lettin' up." This voice came from closer to them. Amaterasu heard footsteps when she adjusted her ears.
"Ah said put da bottle down 'fore I rip ya a new one! If ah catch you again drinkin' when yar supposed t'guard us..."
Oki waved Amaterasu over to get as close as possible, and whispered: "At least three of them in that camp. Maybe more... at least one guard, we must take him first."
"Leave it to me. I'll try and grab his attention, lure him out of the camp. If he calls his friends I'll lure them away too... you stay here and wait for me to be at a safe distance, then if I'm up against just one guy we pincer him, if the leader stays behind you get him instead. Without a boss they'll be headless."
"Kill the alpha. Just be sure that you don't get yourself killed, alright."
"Even if I do I would be reincarnated, like I did once before... don't worry though. I shall not throw myself into a fight I cannot win. But don't do that yourself, either." She held out a hand and Oki, after a brief delay, nodded and put his paw on it, then Amaterasu tugged them together and leant down to bump their shoulders against each other. They were battle-siblings, forged in the fires of war against the akuma that plagued the lands. The oath they had sworn long ago in the snow of Kamui had not lost any of its significance just because they were in a different world - if anything, it had strengthened as a result of them needing one another to survive in these lands.
Oki stood aside as Amaterasu stepped out from behind the cover of the rock and stepped forward, towards the encampment. It did not take long for the guardsman to raise his weapon and pointing it at her menacingly. A large club and a short dagger. "Oi! You there, who're ya? Wha's yar business here?!" he warned. Amaterasu stopped and the troll "I'm warning ya, ah'm armed! Reply or ah'll attack!" When Amaterasu didn't reply he hit the hilt of the dagger against a metal surface that he was wearing by his belt, alerting the camp. Three other trolls were immediately up and on their feet, scampering to get their weapons and aid the guardsman who had raised the alarm. Amaterasu turned around and hushed off into the snow like a ghost, but the red of her dress could be seen for long enough that the trolls knew to run after her into the snow.
"Oi! Stop dead or we gonna shoot!" one of the other trolls yelled. Amaterasu glanced over her shoulder just in time to notice him raising a weapon, a crossbow presumably. It was good that he'd yelled, he had given away his position... when he fired a bolt she sent one of the beads of her Yasakani no Magatama flying behind herself, intercepting the projectile in midair, which destroyed her bead but also made the bolt drop harmlessly. She heard curses and smiled to herself. They had picked up the chase, thinking that they'd missed the bolt somehow, but were after her now. With a little luck their lust for battle would make them forget about the encampment and she could lure them far away. Another bolt whizzed past her ear accompanied by more curses and she tripped into a hole of snow, losing some momentum but also covering up more of the white. She turned a corner and picked up her pace. They were still there, but the one with the crossbow was reloading, and thus slower on his feet.
Back at the encampment the leader had jumped to his feet and yelled off the top of his lungs: "SHAEJIN! Ah told ya t'not drink on duty! Get yar asses back here right now, I swear to Omni..." But his screams were lost to the snowfall that swallowed every sound. Had he not yelled as much he might have heard the death rattle of the one troll that had remained with him, just three meters behind him. But he did hear the corpse fall on the snow and turned around fast enough that Oki could not leap onto his back for a deathbite as well. "Wha' in the... a wolf? Nah, ya'r armed... a damn druid?" He drew his weapon, a frightening thing - a Zweihander bigger than himself, black as the night and yet reflecting the light of the campfire. It reeked of dwarven blood. "Ah en't beheaded a wolf in a while... heh. Les' see how ya fare, mon. Mah men're not gonna get ambushed... it be a setup, right? Dey be smarter 'n that." He then charged forward, swinging his blade in a wide arc, and Oki leapt over the deadly edge while throwing his head back and unsheathing Kuton in flight. He slid past the troll, carried by the momentum of his jump, then turned around to attack, but the troll leader was ready...
Some time later...
"Shaejin, mon... we oughta return to da camp. Dis en't no normal prey... it be eluding us... it en't slow. And we en't hitting it with Jol'zim's bolts either." Shaejin and the two other trolls wielding close-range weapons slowed their step, but they had lost Jol'zim in the snow. He was behind them, certainly, but they did not know how much. And they were by now following the tracks of the strange prey that eluded them, having lost sight of it in the thick of the fog.
"Aye... les' turn around. Ah'm starting ta not like this one bit." spoke Shaejin after a little thought. They turned on their heels, with one of them covering their back just in case, and began to step back along the tracks they had left. Being seasoned Frozen Fields travelers they could find their way even without landmarks or the sky... they had a sixth sense. But only as they began walking did they realize how much they had exerted themselves in the chase, equipped with big heavy weapons and thick fur armor to keep them warm, on top of leather. And wading through the snow. Rookie errors... but they marched, slow but filled with determination.
"Oi... shouldn't we hav' run inta Jol'zim by now?" asked the third troll after a while. "He can' hav' been too far behind us... shoulda caught up. An' now we be runnin' right back at 'im."
Shaejin spat out. "Coward's probably gotten cold feet an' run back ta Golzim, 'fore he gets punished."
"Wait... wha's that?" The troll pointed at tracks that hadn't been there before, which crossed their own. Massive prints, and a uniform strip of flat snow. "Tha' a damn Fur-Selkie? Shaejin, ah don' feel good about this..."
Shaejin froze in place, then pointed forward. "We got tricked... look."
In the bloodied snow laid the corpse of Jol'zim, with several holes the size of a mandarine blown clean through his chest. His head was cut off.
Meanwhile, back at the encampment...
Oki huffed, back in his human form, and with some struggling and the aid of his foot was able to finally dislodge Kuton from the armor of the corpse before him. His left arm was covered in blood from a large cut near his shoulder when he had been too slow to dodge the leader's sword in a critical exchange, and his back had a number of bruises from kicks delivered by the leader after he had disarmed him. He had rarely fought a foe this tenacious. "I know you're there, Amaterasu. You can come out,."
"How did you know?" the kami asked as she emerged, with a worried look on her face. She was carrying two leather bags, one of which was full and had its bottom dripping with blood that had seeped through the seams. The other was empty.
"Heard the Fur-Selkie. They make a really distinct sound when sliding forward." He held his hand out and Amaterasu gave him the empty bag. Using the troll's own sword Oki beheaded the corpse in a swift slash and bagged the head. They would worry about getting the tusks later. Now they had to escape before the hunting party came back.
"Wait, what's that?" asked Amaterasu and reached for an item on the ground. It was some small black device whose surface lit up when she touched it.
"That? He picked it up during our fight. Careful, it might be some weapon."
"No, that's a Communicator... I remember now, the interrogator at Coruscant showed me one. A device used to communicate across distances, and save things. Maybe he was trying to call his men back." She frowned. "This might be useful to keep... could hand it to the dwarves, see if they can make any use of what's on it."
Oki frowned himself. "So many things we have never seen in Nippon. This world is truly odd."
Amaterasu nodded and blinked as a logo flashed across the screen. Apparently the troll had been watching something. Like a small window, she could see... people. A man in a reddish suit, with well-kept hair, a mustache and some sort of black ball on a stick that he held before his mouth as he spoke. "And we're here with yet another volunteer for the rescue expedition. Hi there, my name is Ron Burgundy. Would you mind sparing a moment or two to talk to the people back home?"
"Did that item just speak?! What is that, Ammy?!" asked Oki and unsheathed Kuton again.
"I don't know, Oki. But I know that this thing supposedly is able to transfer speech and pictures across long distances. Maybe the troll was speaking to someone... or listening to it. Uh, hi, I'm..." She began to speak, but the view panned to an anthropomorphic rabbit woman instead, who replied.
"What's that then?" asked Oki. He was dragging Amaterasu over to the Fur-Selkie and having her climb on. The kami was completely lost in the magic of this device.
"I don't know. It says Dee Ay on the top right... and "live." Dante's Ab-something. This phoenician alphabet is hard to read and it got by fast."
"You'll figure it out. We have to go now." Oki took the reins and had the Fur-Selkie slide off, leaving the dead encampment behind for the patrol's return.
"You sure that that's the same group?" The kami asked as she slid off as well and helped Oki at getting it behind a few rocks, where it could wait for them.
"These plains are enormous. Taking into account how unlikely it is that two groups are so close to each other in a location so far away from any settlement, as well as that they went roughly the same way as I saw them go... I mean, I cannot pinpoint it perfectly, but I'm almost certain."
"Let's sneak up and check anyway. Just to be safe."
"I was gonna propose that anyway. We can't be certain that they really are trolls... I didn't see their faces."
"If we can slay two of them you could bring back one of their heads along with me. We could both gain access to the Inner Sanctum of Dwarvenholm. And the innkeeper still has the hide of that other wampa... plus, we can count on Urist to find us enough Cobalt for two people."
"True. Quiet now..." He grunted and bent over as his shape shifted and he turned into a dark-furred wolf, with Kuton resting on his back rather than attached to his hip. Amaterasu had to remain in human form, lacking the capability to take on wolf shape, but that was alright - her white dress concealed her from view, even with a larger figure than Oki, who rolled around in the snow to get his fur whitened. With the weapons at the ready, they snuck up, hiding behind rocks and gradually advancing towards the source of the smoke. Oki was an experienced hunter and tracker, and Amaterasu had some experience at sneaking, but even so it took them a fair share of time before they arrived. Pressing their backs against a rock, they started hearing voices.
"... don' know bout dis, mon. Dey oughta be back by now..." spoke one. A deep, monotonous voice.
"Ya be seein' stuff... Rusraz be with 'em. 'e's da best shaman o' the squad. Mighta run into a tight spot, but... nah, dey en't dead, mon... oi, Shaejin, what d'you think you be doing dere? Leave da bottle alone, yar on guard duty!" This one spoke with a stronger, more authoritarian voice. Probably a sergeant.
"Take it easy, mon. Jus' wettin' me throat... I ain't lettin' up." This voice came from closer to them. Amaterasu heard footsteps when she adjusted her ears.
"Ah said put da bottle down 'fore I rip ya a new one! If ah catch you again drinkin' when yar supposed t'guard us..."
Oki waved Amaterasu over to get as close as possible, and whispered: "At least three of them in that camp. Maybe more... at least one guard, we must take him first."
"Leave it to me. I'll try and grab his attention, lure him out of the camp. If he calls his friends I'll lure them away too... you stay here and wait for me to be at a safe distance, then if I'm up against just one guy we pincer him, if the leader stays behind you get him instead. Without a boss they'll be headless."
"Kill the alpha. Just be sure that you don't get yourself killed, alright."
"Even if I do I would be reincarnated, like I did once before... don't worry though. I shall not throw myself into a fight I cannot win. But don't do that yourself, either." She held out a hand and Oki, after a brief delay, nodded and put his paw on it, then Amaterasu tugged them together and leant down to bump their shoulders against each other. They were battle-siblings, forged in the fires of war against the akuma that plagued the lands. The oath they had sworn long ago in the snow of Kamui had not lost any of its significance just because they were in a different world - if anything, it had strengthened as a result of them needing one another to survive in these lands.
Oki stood aside as Amaterasu stepped out from behind the cover of the rock and stepped forward, towards the encampment. It did not take long for the guardsman to raise his weapon and pointing it at her menacingly. A large club and a short dagger. "Oi! You there, who're ya? Wha's yar business here?!" he warned. Amaterasu stopped and the troll "I'm warning ya, ah'm armed! Reply or ah'll attack!" When Amaterasu didn't reply he hit the hilt of the dagger against a metal surface that he was wearing by his belt, alerting the camp. Three other trolls were immediately up and on their feet, scampering to get their weapons and aid the guardsman who had raised the alarm. Amaterasu turned around and hushed off into the snow like a ghost, but the red of her dress could be seen for long enough that the trolls knew to run after her into the snow.
"Oi! Stop dead or we gonna shoot!" one of the other trolls yelled. Amaterasu glanced over her shoulder just in time to notice him raising a weapon, a crossbow presumably. It was good that he'd yelled, he had given away his position... when he fired a bolt she sent one of the beads of her Yasakani no Magatama flying behind herself, intercepting the projectile in midair, which destroyed her bead but also made the bolt drop harmlessly. She heard curses and smiled to herself. They had picked up the chase, thinking that they'd missed the bolt somehow, but were after her now. With a little luck their lust for battle would make them forget about the encampment and she could lure them far away. Another bolt whizzed past her ear accompanied by more curses and she tripped into a hole of snow, losing some momentum but also covering up more of the white. She turned a corner and picked up her pace. They were still there, but the one with the crossbow was reloading, and thus slower on his feet.
Back at the encampment the leader had jumped to his feet and yelled off the top of his lungs: "SHAEJIN! Ah told ya t'not drink on duty! Get yar asses back here right now, I swear to Omni..." But his screams were lost to the snowfall that swallowed every sound. Had he not yelled as much he might have heard the death rattle of the one troll that had remained with him, just three meters behind him. But he did hear the corpse fall on the snow and turned around fast enough that Oki could not leap onto his back for a deathbite as well. "Wha' in the... a wolf? Nah, ya'r armed... a damn druid?" He drew his weapon, a frightening thing - a Zweihander bigger than himself, black as the night and yet reflecting the light of the campfire. It reeked of dwarven blood. "Ah en't beheaded a wolf in a while... heh. Les' see how ya fare, mon. Mah men're not gonna get ambushed... it be a setup, right? Dey be smarter 'n that." He then charged forward, swinging his blade in a wide arc, and Oki leapt over the deadly edge while throwing his head back and unsheathing Kuton in flight. He slid past the troll, carried by the momentum of his jump, then turned around to attack, but the troll leader was ready...
Some time later...
"Shaejin, mon... we oughta return to da camp. Dis en't no normal prey... it be eluding us... it en't slow. And we en't hitting it with Jol'zim's bolts either." Shaejin and the two other trolls wielding close-range weapons slowed their step, but they had lost Jol'zim in the snow. He was behind them, certainly, but they did not know how much. And they were by now following the tracks of the strange prey that eluded them, having lost sight of it in the thick of the fog.
"Aye... les' turn around. Ah'm starting ta not like this one bit." spoke Shaejin after a little thought. They turned on their heels, with one of them covering their back just in case, and began to step back along the tracks they had left. Being seasoned Frozen Fields travelers they could find their way even without landmarks or the sky... they had a sixth sense. But only as they began walking did they realize how much they had exerted themselves in the chase, equipped with big heavy weapons and thick fur armor to keep them warm, on top of leather. And wading through the snow. Rookie errors... but they marched, slow but filled with determination.
"Oi... shouldn't we hav' run inta Jol'zim by now?" asked the third troll after a while. "He can' hav' been too far behind us... shoulda caught up. An' now we be runnin' right back at 'im."
Shaejin spat out. "Coward's probably gotten cold feet an' run back ta Golzim, 'fore he gets punished."
"Wait... wha's that?" The troll pointed at tracks that hadn't been there before, which crossed their own. Massive prints, and a uniform strip of flat snow. "Tha' a damn Fur-Selkie? Shaejin, ah don' feel good about this..."
Shaejin froze in place, then pointed forward. "We got tricked... look."
In the bloodied snow laid the corpse of Jol'zim, with several holes the size of a mandarine blown clean through his chest. His head was cut off.
Meanwhile, back at the encampment...
Oki huffed, back in his human form, and with some struggling and the aid of his foot was able to finally dislodge Kuton from the armor of the corpse before him. His left arm was covered in blood from a large cut near his shoulder when he had been too slow to dodge the leader's sword in a critical exchange, and his back had a number of bruises from kicks delivered by the leader after he had disarmed him. He had rarely fought a foe this tenacious. "I know you're there, Amaterasu. You can come out,."
"How did you know?" the kami asked as she emerged, with a worried look on her face. She was carrying two leather bags, one of which was full and had its bottom dripping with blood that had seeped through the seams. The other was empty.
"Heard the Fur-Selkie. They make a really distinct sound when sliding forward." He held his hand out and Amaterasu gave him the empty bag. Using the troll's own sword Oki beheaded the corpse in a swift slash and bagged the head. They would worry about getting the tusks later. Now they had to escape before the hunting party came back.
"Wait, what's that?" asked Amaterasu and reached for an item on the ground. It was some small black device whose surface lit up when she touched it.
"That? He picked it up during our fight. Careful, it might be some weapon."
"No, that's a Communicator... I remember now, the interrogator at Coruscant showed me one. A device used to communicate across distances, and save things. Maybe he was trying to call his men back." She frowned. "This might be useful to keep... could hand it to the dwarves, see if they can make any use of what's on it."
Oki frowned himself. "So many things we have never seen in Nippon. This world is truly odd."
Amaterasu nodded and blinked as a logo flashed across the screen. Apparently the troll had been watching something. Like a small window, she could see... people. A man in a reddish suit, with well-kept hair, a mustache and some sort of black ball on a stick that he held before his mouth as he spoke. "And we're here with yet another volunteer for the rescue expedition. Hi there, my name is Ron Burgundy. Would you mind sparing a moment or two to talk to the people back home?"
"Did that item just speak?! What is that, Ammy?!" asked Oki and unsheathed Kuton again.
"I don't know, Oki. But I know that this thing supposedly is able to transfer speech and pictures across long distances. Maybe the troll was speaking to someone... or listening to it. Uh, hi, I'm..." She began to speak, but the view panned to an anthropomorphic rabbit woman instead, who replied.
"What's that then?" asked Oki. He was dragging Amaterasu over to the Fur-Selkie and having her climb on. The kami was completely lost in the magic of this device.
"I don't know. It says Dee Ay on the top right... and "live." Dante's Ab-something. This phoenician alphabet is hard to read and it got by fast."
"You'll figure it out. We have to go now." Oki took the reins and had the Fur-Selkie slide off, leaving the dead encampment behind for the patrol's return.
Quote:2160 words written.
Amaterasu has regenerated 1 SP (3/3 available)
(Amaterasu has also found a Communicator/Mobile Dataverse Device. Dante's Abyss Preshow Interviews are currently being held, in case that wasn't clear.)
✓ Wampa killed and skinned for its hide.
✓ Troll slain and proof of its death obtained.
✘ Cobalt ore chunk mined.
✘ Dwarven champion defeated in spar.
![[Image: Rnk00x5.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/Rnk00x5.gif)
undoge: Credit & Hugs to Ruby for the sign, and to Guu for the smileys! undoge:Hide your chicken nuggers, hide your heads, the Sundoge is coming and she'll hat everyone!
Quote:This signature is so overloaded...