Solo Ever Vigilant (Part One)

[Turrin]

Time Stamp: 32th of Fall, 513AV, Morning Location: The Look Out Who: Turrin “Wake up Turrin. We have a long day ahead of us,” The Myrian opened his eyes and saw the light of Leth illuminating the room. Turrin knew it was before dawn, so he slowly got out of bed, walked to the wash basin, and poured some fresh hot water into it. Splashing water onto his face, he picked up his razor and started to shave a full days stubble. As he continued to shave, he opened his mind to his Wind Eagle Aponivi and asked softly, “When do I have to report to the Lookout?” The Wind Eagle responded simply, “Early tomorrow morning, Turrin, so we day to hunt before we head to your favorite place.” The Endal rolled his eyes at his wind eagle jab at him. Aponivi knew Turrin found the out look incredibility boring, and he often dreaded going there every season, but he knew it was his duty to do so. When he finished his shave, he quickly put on a pair of bryda and katinu and grabbed his talon sword, short bow, and quiver from the notches on the wall. Turrin decided to take ten of his hunting arrows and five of broad tipped arrows just in case the djed creatures were restless. Putting the arrows into the quiver, he secured the quiver to his back and made to Aponivi's chamber. As he walked into the chamber, he saw two deks trying to saddle the massive wind eagle, but they were having difficultly lifting the saddle because of their deformities or health, Suddenly, he heard Aponivi screech loudly as the side of saddle hit him in the side of head. Aponivi turned his head to Turrin and mentally complained, “If the large male Dek hits me in the head on more time, I am going to eat him. I swear to Eywaat. I will!” Walking them drop the saddle on the ground, Turrin picked up his pace, grabbed the Dek by the shoulder, stuck a finger in his face, and said simply Nari with a hint of irritation in his voice, “What the shyke is this!” Pointing at the saddle at the floor, he could tell the Dek was trembling when he held him by the shoulder. Turrin wasn't mad at all, but like his father who lead warriors in Taloba, he also demanded competence out of his subordinates. Turrin squeezed his shoulder and said firmly in Nari, “Both of you know what you are doing. Work as team. Do it right!” He let go of his shoulder, looked at the sickly black haired dek, and said simply, “You go grab bags for saddle. Move!” Turrin draped the saddle blanket onto the bird before he went to the saddle. The Dek ran away to get the saddle bags as quickly as possible. Turrin knew he was to sick and weak to lift the heavy saddle, so Turrin got on the front side of the saddle by Aponivi head. Turrin mentally ask to Aponivi with a smirk on his face, “Will you eat me if I hit you in the head with the saddle?” The wind eagle replied with a mental chuckle, “Oh no. I will just drop you off the side of the mountain.” Turrin laughed out loud and replied, “It is nice to know you care.” The Endal gave the Dek a firm look and said sharply in Nari, “Lift with legs not with back. More strength in legs than back, understand? Watch me if not understand. Make sure you learn. Do it with me.” Turrin grabbed the front of the saddle with both hands, bend down with his knees, and lifted up with his legs. He watched the dek do the same, nodded to him with a smile, and said simply, “Good work, Dek. Now lift onto the back of great bird.” Turrin spread his legs and started to slowly lift the heavy saddle over his head. The Endal could feel the muscles in his arms, back, and legs start to burn. Slowly, he moved the saddle onto the back of the eagle. The Dek was struggling to lift it, so the Myrian started to relieve some of his burden by walking towards the middle of it. Eventually, he just heaved it on to the back of the eagle. Turrin looked at the Dek and said simply, “Go help partner with bags. I will secure saddle.”

[Turrin]

Turrin centered the saddle on top of Aponivi when the saddle was lined up with the eagles head. He bent down and latched the two large leather straps till they nice and snug on the belly of the eagle. Turrin looked at Aponivi and asked him in his mind, “How are the straps?” The wind eagle looked at him and replied, “You might have pulled out a pinion feather, but I am fine.” Turrin rolled his eyes at his complant as he watched the Dek bring over the large saddle bags. He realized that he really didn't need them after all, so he said to them with nod, “Good work both of you. Now bring back. No need for them now.” The Dek sighed heavily and lugged the saddlebags back to storage. Immediately, the wind eagle contacted him with annoyance in his voice, “Why are you playing with them, Turrin?” Turrin turned and looked at Aponivi in his large golden eyes and said plainly in his head, “You should know me by now Aponivi that I don't do anything without reason. In my father's Fang, he demanded competence out of his warriors, so they needed to fulfill their duties in a satisfactory manner if they were lazy or screwed up in anyway. They would be punished for their failure, but his warriors learned quickly not to make same mistakes again, and the Fang went on to win many battles for Myri.” Turrin looked at the Dek and said with a smile, “The dark hair Dek was sick, so he couldn't do the task at hand, so I gave him something else to do. The other Dek was being punished for failure and hitting a sacred eagle in the face. They will learn not to do it again, and their task of saddling a wind eagle will be much easier in the future with the lifting technique I showed them. Now we will fly my friend.” Aponivi was satisfied with his answer, so the wind eagle bent down for him to mount. Doing last minute adjustments to his gear, Turrin grabbed the horn of with his right hand and lifted himself into the saddle. When he was on top of Aponivi, he tightened his legs around the side of the wind eagle. When he was ready, he mentally contacted the wind eagle, “If we head to the eastern valleys of Skyinarta. I heard the hunters saw about ten point buck in the area.” Aponivi replied, “Hold on tightly when we take off, Turrin. The cold winds of the north have been howling to loudly during the night. I have a bad feeling they will be strong all day.” Turrin pat the side of wind eagles neck and said softly in his mind, “I will heed your warning my friend.” The wind eagle started to move to the opening of the aeries, and he could feel the wind started to pick up. It was definitely cool and howled loudly. Turrin frowned to himself and wondered if something was blowing towards Wind Reach. As Aponivi took a running start the entrance, Turrin leaned forward knowing his friend always loved to dive out of the aeries to pick up speed. Having one hand gripping the horn of the saddle and one hand gripping the frout of the saddle, Turrin tightened his legs even more as the eagle leaped from the aeries. The Endal could feel the brisk wind hit him as they plummeted. As they plummeted, Turrin felt a sensation of weightlessness, but when the wind eagle spread his enormous the force of heading up was almost crushing. Eventually, the wind eagle evened out his flight and the sensation of being crushed was just a after thought. Feeling turbulence, Turrin knew he needed to change direction because the wind was quite strong coming from the northeast, so he commanded Aponivi to switch direction. The wind eagle slowly to his left and kept the turn wide, so the wind wouldn't flip him. Eventually, Turrin knew he was flying in the other direction because he flew passed his aeries. The Endal mentally said to him, “I feel heading northeast would be a dangerous ride with the crosswinds and strong wind coming from the bay. We will fly around the mountain. It might be longer, but the wind at our backs might speed us up.” The flight around the mountain was quite amazing sight to behold because the glacier seemed to had a batch of new snow. He knew at this altitude all the participation was mostly snow or ice even in the summer. Turrin flew over a pair of fellow riders who were practicing flying maneuvers in the lower elevations. The wind eagle started to veer to the right as he started to circle the mountain, so Turrin had to tighten his legs on the eagle, crouch lower to the saddle, and leaned into the left turn. Eventually, the wind eagle evened out on the south side on the volcano and flew to lower elevations, so the volcano would shield them from the wind.

[Turrin]

The south side of mountain was virtually devout of the wind that was plaguing the north side. Turrin straighten up in his saddle to relieve the aching in his back. He noticed the skies on the south side of Skyinarta were crowed today with Endal. It took a half a bell to fly to the east side of the mountain. Turrin could see the clouds were flying quickly past the mountain, so Turrin contacted Aponivi, “The winds look bad on the east side of the mountain too, so we will start descending. I doubt the wind will be bad closer to the ground.” The eagle started to descend and the wind speed started to reduce. Eventually, the Aponivi and him were a few hundred feet over the canopy. Turrin alerted him to a clearing in the trees, and the eagle flew towards it and eventually touched down in the glade. Turrin patted his neck and mentally said, “I will be back in a few bells, so why don't you stay here and rest the flight up to the Look Out will be rough today.” Turrin jumped off the saddle and pulled his furred hood over his head, and he started to walk into the forest. It was cold today and slight cold breeze in the air, but the sky was clear, so he didn't have any reason to worry about the weather. Walking through the woods, Turrin noticed a trunk of a tree was completely devout of bark for a five feet. He stopped to examine it knowing only a animal could have stripped the bark from the tree. Kneeling down, he noticed a hoof marks all around the base of the tree. Smiling to himself, he stood up and started to follow the tracks of the hoofed beast. The Endal took his short bow off his back and following the tracks through the forest. As he made his way through the forest, he noticed the aspens and birches were a nice shade of yellow. It bathed everything in a golden light, but eventually, he came to a patch of ground that seemed to be covered with fallen leaves. Turrin swore to himself because he just lost the path of the deer. He looked around a heard a pair of cicadas started to call out to each other, but he noticed a rather large bush full of blue colored berries to his right. He started to wonder if he waited here. Maybe something would appear to munch on some berries. The Endal looked around him and noticed a tree a gnarly oak tree with brown leaves to vicinity of the berry bush. Securing his short bow on his back, he walked over to a low hanging branch of the tree, reached up to the closest branch, and pulled himself onto it. He looked up and noticed a branch slightly above him, so he reached up and grabbed the branch. He started to stand, but he lost his balance, fell back to the forest floor, and landed on his side. Laying on the ground for a moment, he knew nothing was broken, so he slowly started stand up, but he felt a throbbing pain on his left hip, so he knew he wouldn't be moving quickly till the pain subsides.

[Turrin]

Looking around again, Turrin noticed a large bush in the vicinity of the bush, so he decided to go the easy route and hide behind it. The Myrian hunted with his father all the time as a child, and he noticed hunting was a occupation based on patients. Game tended to try to avoid predators at all cost even if they were one of the mortal races. The first bell was void of a any game what-so-ever. He occasionally saw a rabbit or a red squirrel, but he knew that being a Endal meant he needed to hunt larger game like deer or walrus, so he let the smaller game pass without his harassment. The Endal noticed the yellow shade of the forest was starting to fade because of the ever growing cloud cover. He frowned to himself hoping it wouldn't rain. Eventually the end of the second bell passed, and he was about to pick up and find new spot, but he heard rustling of leaves and noticed a small four point buck walk out from the underbrush. Turrin stayed low to the ground as he watched the deer walk over to the berry bush and started to eat the blue berries. The Myrian stuck his finger in his mouth and stuck it into the air. He noticed the wind was coming in his direction, so he wouldn't have to worry about the deer smelling him. Still crouching behind the bush, Turrin slowly pulled a hunting arrow from his quiver and placed it onto his bowstring. The Myrian slowly stood up and lifted his bow, so the tip of the arrow aimed at the neck of the beast. Making sure his stance was correct, Turrin widened his feet slightly and brought his elbow straight out when he pulled the bowstring to his cheek. Holding the bow string pulled back, he waited for the perfect opportunity to release the arrow. When the deer heard a sound and raised it head, Turrin took a deep breath and released bowstring on the exhale. The arrow streaked towards the deer, but it veered slightly to the right and struck the deer in the top of the hip. Watching the dear stumble in shock at the impact, Turrin swore at his luck since he was aiming for the neck and not the hip, so he pulled another arrow from his quiver, placed it on the bowstring, pulled the arrow to cheek, and released the second arrow. As the buck started to run, the second arrow streaked towards the body of the beast and hit the deer at the base of the neck. The deer stumbled to the ground in a heap, but it still wasn't dead, so he placed his bow on the ground and unsheathed his talon sword. He walked around the bush with his talon sword pointing to the ground. The deer saw him and started to stumble away slowly, so Turrin jogged over to it, brought up his sword, and swung a down and across cleaving off the leg from knee. The deer stumbled over crying out in pain, but it's cries were cut short when Turrin brought sword under the neck of the dear and slitting the throat of the deer. When the deer finally died, he cleaned off the blood of his talon sword on the fur of deer. Turrin sheathed his talon sword and went back to the bush and picked up his short bow. He secured the bow to his back and walked over to his deer. He knew the deer was to big for him to carry long distances, so he mentally contacted Aponivi, “I was able to kill a deer my friend, so you can pick me up now.”

[Harrier]

Skills	Amount
Intimidation	1
Riding (Wind Eagle)	2
Tracking	2
Hunting	2

Lore

Dek: Useless without Direction

Climbing Trees: bad balance=Falling on your butt

Tracking: Searching for tracks in leaves

Kalea Flora: Blueberries are useful for luring deer

Uh Oh: Turrin has a nasty bruise along his right hip that will not go away until fall 40. He should be more mindful when climbing trees!

Additional Comments: Turrin, it is at times difficult to tell if he is thinking, talking to Aponivi with his mind, or talking to someone outloud. Quotation marks (" ") should only be used for speech, not thought. Italics are fine, quotation marks are not. There are also some issues in this thread that need to be addressed, particularly in regards to powergaming. Though the character is written to be a more matured individual of WR, the PC simply does not have the level of skill you're playing at with his archery. At only 17 points with his bow, Turrin wholly lacks the skill required to nock, aim, draw, fire, nock, aim, draw, fire in that quick of a succession let alone successfully kill like that. As such, you are not receiving any points (or the deer) in Short Bow. For his level of novice, he might be able to nock, aim, draw, and fire in a slower manner and hit moderately well an unmoving target. For perfect shots, on a moving target, you need to be nearly expert. "Lucky shot" just doesn't cut it.

(c) abstract