Taste the Fear of the Hunt

[Ialari Pythone]

Mid Winter in the Year 509 AV: Sahova Island


The Winter had been a long one indeed for Ialari. The squalid conditions she found herself living in were slowly taking their toll on her both physically and mentally. While she struggled to keep maintain her sanity through periodic visits to one of the little used forges located in the depths of the citadel, she realized that more was needed to keep her mind and body separate from the death that surrounded her at all times. It was that which brought her to the northern woods of the island. This was the testing grounds of the wizards of Sahova; a place where they unleashed all manner of experimental beings in which to study. Supervised but barely controlled, the testing grounds were not for the light of heart or weak of mind. Ialari was neither of these.

It was during one of her sessions in the forge that Ialari realized the need for companionship. Although she sometimes conversed with Master Qiao on matters of crafting as well as her progress with the renegade nuit who had sought to ally with the former supervisor golem, Drainira, it was hardly something one would consider friendship.

This is what brought her to the northern woods. What few living beings there were on Sahova, seemed pathetic in Ialari's eyes. They hungered for knowledge and power but had little to no greater purpose. They were hopeless and useless in her eyes. She had heard however of the vast wonders that could be found in the northern woods; wonders as well as horrors. Deciding that either was preferably to the dry, unliving slime that stuck to her like the foulness of a swamp, she took a break from the citadel and wandered into the woods. She figured that somewhere on the god-forsaken island, there had to be something related to a snake; something that would bring her comfort and joy. She always found friendship and comfort in the company of snakes. Her earliest memory was that of laying in a pit of death adders; their smooth scales caressing her body as they slithered over her. Her family name afterall was, Pythone, a name taken for the serpents that the family held in such high regard. She had caught wind back at the citadel of various experiments regarding snakes in the northern wood and decided that she would face whatever dangers there may be if only for the possibility of encountering a potential friend.

Snakes, regardless of how altered they may be on Sahova, would resort to their animal instincts and seek dens familiar to the essence of their blood. Thus Ialari began with the trees; a popular home to constrictors of all kinds. If that didn't prove fruitful, she would move deeper into the woods in search of swampier terrain where some of the more poisonous and deadlier varieties may be found. The thought of the danger in this pursuit was more than enough to shoot a tingling sensation throughout her body. Slowly licking her lips, closed her eyes for a moment and reveled in the feeling before stepping past the boundary of trees and vanishing into the testing grounds.