Saviors of Arlae - Fantasy "Campaign" - NEEDS VILLAINS/Open

[N K Cake]

The body in Nar's hands, with its face chewed off by this point, fell from his grip. He found himself surprisingly calmed after that fight, or perhaps that was just the fact that after losing all that blood he would not even be able to jump up and down without keeling over. Not really a new feeling. He turned to the first distraction, which was the little girl landing up and down in a puddle of blood. Sick brat. If he had the energy left to keep himself going, he would have done something about that creepiness.

The Gnoll sluggishly turned to look at the woman clapping, and growled quietly. Besides for that, the area had become eerily quiet. No doubt the birds had been scared off by all the yelling. His eyes maintained their keenness, but his body was failing at showing the same level of confidence. His breathing was heavy and he was bleeding in several places, which was the only thing showing he was actually hurt. His blood matted fur managed to cover any sign of bruises or cuts made to his form, without which he would look like a scarred and bleeding corpse.

Nar lifted a hand to his face as he listened to the woman. He gave his eyes and forehead a rub, trying but failing at getting rid of the light headed sensation now taking over. His hand left his face bloodied as he lowered it, and he stared straight at the pale lady.

"So that's where they've all gone. There a new war going on or something?" Nar commented casually in reply. He had observed that he had not met other people from his profession recently, particularly the few who could maintain themselves in his company. Lords hiring meant everyone would be busy trying to get at the potential riches. Knowing that, he wondered if he should waltz up to some castle in some random town and ask to see if the nobles would pay him for some death dealing. Then again... Why walk anywhere when this opportunity was presented?

Nar's eyes went over the female's form. 'What had they called her? Lady.. Ar...larl something. A Lady anyway. The Tamer.' That struck a bell. Nar could not remember where he had heard it, but he knew he had. He was pretty sure he hadn't met the person before though. He would only have guessed she was someone he violated before if they had met, but she didn't act like a r*pe victim. To get back on track, this person was the one potential gateway now out of his boredom streak and back into employment. Plus, she had mentioned that weapon...

The Gnoll spat on the ground, his saliva reddened from blood. Always a rather bad sign. He was getting pretty keen on having that bath he had planned on before. His eyes went to those of the woman and he managed a toothy grin, the only thing that could be considered a smile by him. He could never make it look appealing to the humans. Something about sharp fangs they didn't like.
"You said you can deliver lots more fights, and some coin, too?" Nar brought up one of the most appealing points of the potential contract. That would be alright. There were always fights, but it usually was just 'oh kill this one annoying douche for this other douche', etc. Being hired for war, now that had been a thrill. The money for conscripts sucked, but you reaped the extra off the men you killed. If he needed any extra reasons, survival instincts taught you to agree to anything as long as you didn't die on that spot. His body was starting to ache uncomfortably. He spat on the ground again and then nodded to the woman.

"I'm on board. You can call me Blood Maw. You point me in the right direction and people die, just don't get in the way." He spoke calmly. That was his catchphrase to his employers. They all had one in this field of expertise, as well as some sort of codename for added emphasis of skill, to think it was to hide your name from authorities was usually a misconception. Some of the more memorable ones he had met on missions before were 'The swiftest blade in Arlae' - she really had not been - and 'Beast Slayer Jack'. To put it bluntly, a beast had slain him in the end. The irony had been very funny to all who heard it, except the man's family, but they stopped resisting after a quick fight.

((Wow xD well done))  

[Ayame-Yuura]

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xxxxxx Lady Arathel of Desmarais Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
xxxThe Tamerxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxUnofficial Princessxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxAspiring Queen

Arathel nodded with those naturally scheming doll eyes she held when she wasn't being her 'public self', meeting the eyes of the gnoll. She let the facade fall and allowed the ambition and silent evil show on her face as though that had always been there before.

After a minute of thought, she replied with the same velvety yet not somehow menacing voice, "There is a war. A silent one fought amongst the children of the king, like myself. They call this anarchy? I plan to bring true chaos to this land. Have them fight amongst themselves, brother against brother, and then, I'll win."

When he asked about money, she simply nodded and said, "And plenty more when I'm queen" No doubt, she was self-assured that she was going to seize the crown. In fact, she had no trust that any of her idiotic half-brothers and sisters would serve as a worthy opponent against her. However, their popularity posed a threat that had to be eliminated. Simply framing each and having them imprisoned won't do for on their side were the righteous 'heroes' that thought the peace could be preserved even while no ruler was able to step up and claim the throne.

She introduced herself again after the gnoll with her own catch phrase and code name. It was a trend for mercenaries but people like her whose stories and tales of adventure were told and retold for the fancy of bards with nothing better to do and tavern wenches who could spread gossip faster than wildfire. This adventurer was, however, the pickiest of the picky. After all, she was likely richer than anyone who wanted something done and occasionally just did whatever if the presence of such a being that needed to be hunted annoyed her or was against her best interest. She began, "I am Arathel The Tamer. If a pretty face can't kill, it can tame."

"Come, child. Let's get you some clean clothes" She called out to Alice. She then continued, "Let's also find a religious figure in the nearby city. I'm also pretty sure a certain assassin should be close by. Wouldn't hurt to have the best assassin in Arlae onboard"

She had brute strength on her side now. What was Alice? Ah, perhaps miscellaneous. They now needed someone who could kill silently and someone who could sway people with words and the power of a faith that could inspire.

(( Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ OOC: RPing at 3am, on coke and sugar-rush from wafer sticks. Woot! ))

 

[N K Cake]

There was a change in the female's facial expression which very apparently clashed with her earlier demeanor, but Nar was struggling to register it while his body fought against unconsciousness and severe injuries. He managed to stand in place, looking as indomitable as ever, while his mind was yelling in agony and his heart beat on for dear life. From past experience, Nar figured it would be moderately fine after a while, as long as he did not start running. Just standing there on that rough road was rest enough for him of course. Laying down showed too much weakness.

The lady talked about some king dying and lots of people going for the throne. He managed to pay so-so attention to all of it. As far as Nar's understanding of politics went, it was always some violent bloody race with the rule 'first come first serve' for the throne. Everyone fought everyone else for the chance to get at it. Then when one had it, everyone else still kept trying to kill them to restart the selection process. He had been hired a few times by the kind of high class individuals on more ... politically influenced jobs, but he tended to make a farce of anything that was supposed to be subtle.

The promise of money he heard with one-hundred percent clarity, and his ears twitched curiously. The Gnoll nodded understandingly. Sounded good enough. Her being queen and giving him treasures, the kind he imagined royalty regularly held, was particularly attractive. They always had such nice things. He at times worked for the bare minimum just to get a meal a day in order to keep himself going. As far as necessity went it was worth it, just very little bonus to keep for a rainy day. His uncontrollable rage tended to limit the number of clients to work for as well, making life more than a bit difficult, so he had to take what he could out of his dealings. Pilfering from the remains of those who fell before him sometimes made for a good few coin. This new job, hopefully, fixed any worry of that sort.

Nar scoffed in light amusement when she introduced herself in that fashion, and nodded in greeting. Arathel the Tamer, eh. Uncomfortable title, the tamer, he had to admit. He disliked the idea of nature being bound, of himself being bound. But he respected her having more than a name to go by, and introduced herself in such a fashion. He was clearly working for someone of moderate importance, and no fool.

Nar gave a glance to the girl entertaining herself in all the blood as his employer addressed her. Bah, so very sick. What sorta warped up parents did she have? Sure did not smell like a demon, even if her actions implied the opposite. He lifted an odd gaze to the woman when she mentioned a religious person. Oh he did not have the time to start on all the things he saw wrong with cave dwelling weirdos who stabbed virgins on stone altars while singing in strange languages. Religion they had called it. Those altars were really uncomfortable to lay on, bunch of freaks deserved the beating they got afterward for trying that sorta thing. 'Incarnation of a dark god my ***.'

What was interesting was the point about an assassin. Not just an assassin, the best assassin. Well, in Arlae at least. Who was at the top these days around here... Him and a few others had been involved in killing 'The Shadow' a few years back when someone had started hiring the best assassin back then to hit on high bounty sellswords like him. It had to be... "Who's that? Old b*tch Zrael?" Stupid drow lived too long. That old lady was going to get punched if she showed up hunting him, again. If he could land a goddamn hit this time.

"Or one of the Ravens?" Guild of assassins, The White Ravens of Arlae were a skilled bunch to say the least. Bunch of annoying f*cks. He remembered his past mental note to waltz into their base of operations, if he ever found it out, and take as many of them out as he could. It was always frustrating when you were targeted cos of a stupid bounty set by ... well, everyone had a price on him by now it seemed. Guilds of people at it were the most insistent.

His mind was calming and he went over records of people in his head. Who else was there... That shroud kid was on death row last he heard, the Sisters he killed last week, and the Red Monks should no longer be operating in Arlae. The Ghosts wouldn't deal with this sorta thing. No way. Arrogant, snob nosed pricks, but at least they had chosen to ignore him after they met him. Ok it was annoying being considered not worthy to be killed by them, but he was busy enough as it was with current enemies. If anything Nar knew, it was his business.


((Lol, awesome.))  

[Ayame-Yuura]

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xxxxxx Lady Arathel of Desmarais Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
xxxThe Tamerxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxUnofficial Princessxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxAspiring Queen

Arathel nodded again. "Yes. Her. I haven't met her in person yet but I did have someone killed recently, other than the person I sent to hire her. The fruits of that assassination look very promising, don't you think?" She could only be referring to the death of the queen. After all, it was her death that propelled anarchy to be the law of the land.

"Now then." She continued. "How do we go about making sure people don't target you while you're working for me? Shall we say... That you saved this little girl?" She chuckled darkly before mentioning another scheme, "... and play her as a legitimate child of the king and queen? Tell them that you owe me your life? Or perhaps the lamest excuse ever?" She rolled her eyes, flicking a dainty finger, "Say that I've captured you? After all, now that there is no central government, it's one lord against the other. Offense against the subjects, otherwise known as property, of one, means to challenge them to war. The people who would want to challenge me are very few. Thus, are the benefits of being beloved."

(( Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ OOC: ))

 

[Anniria]

If I show you, then I know you, won't tell what I said.

Alice skipped over to them her legs and the bottom of her dress covered in blood, as was the very tips of her knee length hair as she said, "Neh, neh, why not tell them the truth, that you hired him into your employ, no one wants to mess with someone, who can keep a blood thirsty brute in their employ willingly. And if they don't believe it, well, that's their fault isn't it?" Throughout it all she still had the same expression of innocence as she looked at the both of them happily.

Cause two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead

 

[N K Cake]

'What?' The Gnoll had to question instantly in his head. The woman just agreed that, yes, they were going to get Zrael. He had hoped the woman was not particularly well informed about this and picked someone more random, more unknown - but no. Goddamn, that drow was such a p***k off the job. 'Just think about the rewards,' Nar calmed himself and avoided raising words in resistance to his employer's idea. At least the assassin would not be targeting him, he hoped. The Gnoll shrugged coolly in response, not making apparent any particular distaste to the idea.

The next thing the woman raised seemed trivial, unnecessary. Make sure people don't target him? Bah! She wished. He had been targeted since ... Forever. Nothing this b*tch did was going to change that. Nar had no hope nor support for such an idea. The only advice he would give was to drop it and not worry about it. She went too far too quickly, talking on and on - Till bringing up the idea of telling people she had captured him. The Gnoll had a particularly displeased look on his bloody, gnarly face as he processed that.

"Don't care about that. My problem, I'll deal with it." Nar raised his voice and spoke sternly. He stated that quite simply, and avoided yelling at that stupid woman for even suggesting such a thing as controlling him. She was going to lose all control of the situation, because he would lose control of himself, if she started going on about more annoying ideas like that.

He always had taken care of any hunter, and always would. Just like the earlier bunch of folk, and that angry mob. People were trying to stop him for obvious reasons - the bounty on him was starting to exceed the weight of half of the gold in the entire kingdom, probably - and it was always going up because nobody could stop him, not for lack of trying obviously. The only thing that would get him by now was old age, or so it seemed. Not like it was far anyway. Already in his thirties, the Gnoll was pushing it for a beast-kin like himself. Not that he showed signs of old age like the humanoid races did when starting to get nearer to the end. For a Gnoll, the decline would be sudden, swift and unavoidable. He was going to remain in strength till that last day, and then drop dead.

The little girl started suddenly making a lot of sense. He nudged his head in her direction when she finished speaking, the only sign of agreement he gave. There was no need to go to any extra trouble over his personal issues. He had it under control. "Let's just get going. I'm hankering for a bath," Nar mentioned gruffly to change the topic. The need for a wash up had been very obvious since the end of the fight, and properly before it.  

[Ayame-Yuura]

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xxxxxx Lady Arathel of Desmarais Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
xxxThe Tamerxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxUnofficial Princessxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxAspiring Queen

"Hm. That works too" Arathel said and patted Alice on the head. "Come then", she said simply and led the two towards that city where religious leaders converged. Perhaps, they'd find exactly what was necessary there. She wasted no more time and just went ahead, leading the horse with one hand. As they approached the city, a pigeon began descending towards them and Arathel held out her hand as it dropped a bag of gold in it.

She handed it to Nar saying, "Well, Alice and I will go find more people and perhaps go shopping. I don't want you getting bored now so as soon as you get that bath, why don't you go ahead and find my brothers and sisters?" She also got out a rolled up piece of paper where their names, titles, appearances and addresses were written down, for him. She nodded and raised her hood, bidding him to go ahead.

(( Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ OOC: ))

 

[N K Cake]

Nar sluggishly walked after the females as the troupe began making their way ahead. Walking out there in the open, just along the road, was sort of refreshing. He took pleasure in such a small thing when most often he had to stay off any path, off any open or distinctive area, had to stay out of sight. The road was smooth under his feet, if not a little rough and pointy, but the thick bottoms of his feet could easily deal with that. No roots or masses of obstacles like trees in the way either. Plus there was the wind. A breeze always struggled to pass into the depths of forests due to the blockade of plant life around, but on the road nothing stopped a cool wind from ruffling his fur and caressing his wounds.

He stayed quiet along the trip, but kept his mind occupied. Glancing at the girl, he made sure not to forget his grudge. The woman would probably look to protect her, so he might just wait till the job was done, or make it so she just... 'disappeared'. Then again a subtle thing like that was quite out of his style. His mind wandered to that horse the woman pulled along. Nar's first thought was that it would taste good. You could not see horses as transport, just extra rations, when the animals were either too weak or too scared to carry you. He was quick enough on his own paws as well. When a party ran out of packed food and was in the midst of some rough area with no potential for catching or finding food, horses started to look very good all of a sudden, for everyone.

The last thing on his head, before his attention was drawn from his thoughts, was the city they were now approaching. Their slow pace remained the same, and the two in front did not seem at all bothered. Yet, Nar himself was assured that the gate guards would recognize him immediately in there. That would be the end of this strange, casual calm going on. He was keen on taking an.. alternate route, getting away from this group, and interested in doing some travel solo, as was natural to him.

What happened first then, was the scent of a domesticated bird catching his nostrils. The smell shared a hint of the woman he was now working for. The pigeon landed, and there was the cling and clang of coin from within that bag. Nar had stopped and was observing the transaction curiously, until the bag landed in his large paw. The Gnoll was moderately pleased to say the least. The woman then went on to give him a piece of paper containing extra info - always helpful - and bid him farewell. 'Perfect' Nar nodded his head in understanding.
"Got it," he stated, and was off instantly. With a quick pace, he disappeared off to the areas beyond the sides of the road they were on. First, as she had indicated already, would be the bath. Then a hunt for a few rich folk. For now it seemed easy enough. The money would do well for a bribe if a threat was not adequate.  

[M3Gnificent]

Luciiraptar

After pouting for a moment, Khaja brightened as something occurred to her. "Stealing stuff, right? That's what we were doing. We were gonna be evil and steal stuff. Let's do that!"

"Stealing's only evil when you put a lable or cause behind it. Like taxes or tithes." Valena let out a hearty chuckle afterwards, well aware of the irony of her words. "A little self interest here and there ever hurt anybody, after all." By Valena's logic, it was the people who possessed it who hurt others. Sure, it was arguing semantics at that point, but what sentient being of her kind didn't at some point or another? (This could work well for priests too, which almost brought her more amusement than her previous comment did.)

 

[ZimbuTessen]

Calcifer had stepped far back from the new person. He didn't need magical detection to tell that this girl was bat sh-... or cat... you know what, forget it. She's nuts. "Your insane friend could tag along if she didn't hurt the kids." He didn't sugar coat his words.

 

[M3Gnificent]

"Friend is a...generous term. For anyone as far as I am concerned." Valena purred easilly, slipping herself from Khaja's grasp for the moment being. As much as she enjoyed sleeping around and finding pleasure wherever she could, Valena did not like people clinging to her for long. It was confining, suffocating from even the most well intentioned and likeable of individuals, which was something that her free spirit could never endure for long.

 

[Luciiraptar]

"I prefer snuggle-buddy," Khaja purred. "I snuggle with her, and then her ribs snuggle with my pointy knife. It's all very nice and warm." She leans over and licks the side of Valena's cheek. "And hot."

 

[Ayame-Yuura]

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xxxxxx Lady Arathel of Desmarais Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
xxxThe Tamerxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxUnofficial Princessxxx ⊹⊹⊹ xxxAspiring Queen

Arathel brought Alice with her to a dress shop that catered to very rich clients as soon as they entered the city. The man who ran the dress shop was furious at first as Arathel barged in demanding the best silks and garments in Arlae for the little girl she brought with her. The man was silenced as soon as she raised her hood and he asked for Alice to come with him so they could fit her in some less bloody clothes. He knew she could pay up Arathel meantime raised her hood again and looked through the dresses in the shop. Of course, the durable garments she wore underneath her cloak would far surpass those in terms of detail and design, but she did her best not to judge. She was assured that her horse was 'parked' outside the store with its bridle neatly tied on the wood where horses were often tied to. Besides, Amadeo wouldn't let just anyone ride him anyway.

Outside the dress shop, on the street so it seemed, were three peculiar people talking to each other. One looked much like a feline, the other was cloaked like her and another had a strange mask on his face. Her eyes were drawn to them although she tried not to concern herself. Conflict with hooligans this early in the game would be rather unfortunate. She just hoped they would disappear soon as their appearance through the shop windows rather annoyed her even if she didn't show it. She brought out a roll of paper and unrolled it. With the tailor's feather pen, she crosses off the gnoll's role on her list as well as miscellaneous for Alice. She occupied herself by writing down their characteristics for later reference.

(( Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ OOC: ))

 

[M3Gnificent]

"As I told you, making any such attempt would go very badly for you." Valena was completely unresponsive to Khaja's advances at this point, like she would be for a toy that's lost its novelty or a broken trinket. She never outright threw her things away, either, often leading to many jilted one night stands being neglected or outright ignored in the presence of newer toys that still retained their novelty. She never intended to think of her sexual partners like this. It was simply a product of both her raising and natural instinct.