[Quest] The Hunters and the Hunted.

[Victor Wolfe]

Victor awoke, dizzy from the night before. The adrenaline had long since faded and the aftermath had all but erased his short term memory, leaving him in a dazed, lethargic state. He sat up using the stump of a long dead tree to support his back, wincing as he felt abrupt pain pulse throughout his body. Oh right, there was a werewolf. His thoughts drifted as he scanned himself to be sure everything had healed properly, being quite surprised to find that instead of staring at his stylish cloak and shirt, he discovered only his bare chest. He then focused on what wounds he may have, feeling the echoes of scars from the previous night. Flashes of memory invoked phantom pains from the forgotten wounds, soon fading as his mind cleared. His eyes drifted further down, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

Why am I naked?

Victor's head turned slowly to his left, he was in a clearing, old and dead trees making up most of the skyline. His eyes lowered to the dark mud that made up most of the ground. He noticed canine and human footprints, some of them still filled with dyed red water where the swamp had mixed with what he assumed was blood. His eyes drifted as they followed the canine footprints, they stopped at a cross section of three sets of human prints,and the remains of what he assumed was a human but could have been a small dog for all that was left of it. Scavengers had obviously took their chance to gorge themselves on the remains. How did I end up naked and next to a dead person? His eyes scanned the corpse, the neck bone having a long but very fine fracture, likely from a very sharp blade. OK, so I slit its throat, well not the first time this has happened so I think I have the picture. He smiled, normally now he would have to wake up, get dressed and then find a place to dump the body inside an imperial palace. Apparently undead and curse-filled forests where the far more efficient way to do things. I guess if I ever do return to my own world and off some minor nobles wife because she got to attached I will know to invite her out to a haunted forest and claim the lycans did it this time!

His smug grin returned to his face, he had finally figured out what had happened, getting into a fight to the death and slitting someone's throat was a pretty common occurrence for him. Breathing a sigh of relief he wondered what he had thought had happened?  But still He couldn't escape the feeling that there was a detail he was missing, a crucial piece of the puzzle. His eyes continued to drift to his right the foggy forest continuing to confirm to him that everything was as he thought. However as his head reached the end of its rotation his eyes went wide, the drowsiness being blasted away as he noticed a female form. Facing away from him and also naked she was bent over, attempting to pick her clothing from the ground. His eyes greedily took in the curves of her body, from her legs, well toned from her life of hunting the beasts of these forests, and her fully exposed rear. Definitely a woman, and a perfec… Near perfect one at that, after all we all know perfection doesn't exist. 

As his eyes admired the beauty in front of him the final memories from the night before came rushing back. How in a rage he decided to hunt some undead, but instead found a new companion and more interesting prey, How they had been played around with, and in their frustration lured the beast into a trap, how her sweary, murderous passion and rage turned into lust as they embraced to the sound of blood filling a helpless victim's lungs, the pathetic attempts to call out only driving them on more. "Well I guess that there may be true perfection in this world," he purred, infatuated with the woman .

Gabriella, who had been in the process of picking up her shirt, either not noticing, or caring that he could see everything turned her head slightly. “Just up and already talking about my ass!” she said, the edge of her smile just showing from the side of her face as she gave it a wiggle.

“Well, that is one thing, shall I list the few hundred other details or shall we just agree that it's pretty much everything my dear? After all, I don't tend to stick around too long if I don’t think I can have a lot more fun ” He said with his own grin.

Deciding that getting dressed may not be the worst idea in the world Victor stood up, stretching out his muscles, still sore from the fight and lack of rest the night before. His nose twitched, the familiar scent of decay filling the air, mixed with blood and sweat. It wasn’t long before he stood in front of Gabby, fully dressed, the black and red still caked with mud. The shiny silver of his belt now dull with dirt and grim, His daggers however still shone in their scabbards showing very little wear from the night before. The enchanted metal keeping itself clean and sufficiently sharp. 
He gathered what was left of his clothing, some of it in dire need of repairs.”So who ripped the cloak?” he sighed wondering if he had gotten careless and a swipe from the beast's claws had shredded the piece de resistance of his fashion.

“Oh that? I tore it” Gabriella said with a laugh

“Why?” Victor said a little irked 

“Because the button was annoying and a minute or two of fiddling with it might have killed the rush” She said with a grin 

“Fair point” Victor sighed in reluctant agreement as he looked for his shirt. Only to hear a slightly annoyed question.

“Victor? What happened to my underwear?”


The assassin giggled “Oh those? I tore them off, after all, spending all that time getting them off any other way would have taken away from the mood” His laughter filled the forest as Gabriella let out a frustrated sigh of her own. As the now grinning assassin continued to look for the last piece of his clothing. From what he could remember it had been thrown and caught on a tree branch a few meters away. His partner's strength continuing to surprise him.

Walking over in the general direction he sniffed the air once again, the stench of putrid rotting flesh filling his nostrils. His hands reached down and removed his blades from their scabbards, he walked around the tree that had once held his shirt and spotted a lone undead, its legs rotted to the point it could only manage a slow shuffle towards him. As he got closer he could see the signs of decay, large areas of bone and tendon exposed to the elements, the zombie was old, and may have survived to rot into nothingness, had it not happened to have walked into the branch holding his shirt, the fabric now coated in blood and rotting flesh pieces having distinctly more red than he remembered. Victor sighed, “OK, hold these please” he asked sarcastically as he stabbed his blades into the creature's eyes. Leaving them there as he grabbed his shirt from it, causing it to fall backwards and die. 

Once he was properly dressed, missing his cloak he leaned down and removed his daggers, the gore sliding off the blades as he lifted them. “Thank you kindly sir” he joked tipping an imaginary hat as he walked back to Gabby with a spring in his step. What a vacation it had been: crushed a zombie's skull against a rock, kneecapped another then watched a zombie girl smash his head into a wall, hunted down a werewolf and then spent the night with one of the most interesting people he had ever met. Just what he needed to release the stress of the last few weeks. Everything had worked out superbly. 

As he walked back he thought about what he should do next. The first thing that came to mind was to rush back to Nippur and do his job, but that could wait a bit longer, he was sure that Templar could handle managing some ruins for a bit longer. Nothing else really came to mind though, all of his other business he could attend to at any time.And the idea of going back to the tedium of dealing with the idiot yes-men King Gilgamesh tended to surround himself with was far from appealing, even getting all the information he would need to make a decision on what the city needed could take days with the incompetence of those guards.He looked down to his leg, couldn't even stop a thief and rodent from waltzing into our palace. However Gabriella was a breath of fresh air, almost a kindred spirit. He wanted to see just what other interesting situations they could get into. He weighed it up, let's see, Templar who takes himself to seriously, or perfect woman? Thus it was decided, he would extend his vacation and see what other fun things his new friend could show him. Walking back over to Gabriella who was now fully dressed he grinned “looking great as always dear, although I must ask, any idea what we could do next? Not to speak for you but this has been really fun. So miss Gabriella? Was this just a one night fling of passion? Or shall we see just how far this chance meeting will take us?” He said with a near manic grin.