It had been a long, long time since Faval had gotten any interesting work. He had left Zeltiva little over a year ago for that exact reason and fate or the gods or whatever divine being the people of this city prayed to did not care all that much for him it would seem. Ravok was a very, very different place than Zeltiva, disturbingly so to be perfectly honest. Where Zeltiva was progressive, intellectual and dare Faval say, serene, Ravok was the polar opposite. This place was destitute, vicious, volatile and downright distressing on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, Faval's only skills tended to involve murder and as such, his employ as a mercenary fit in quite well in this place. The young man felt the soft sigh escape him as he vacantly gazed out in to The Pit, which was handily the thing he understood the least about this place. While he could not deny a sort of cathartic feel that violence gave, the concept of a blood sport was lost on him. Why people enjoyed this kind of activity he would not and probably could not ever understand. He supposed the amoral among the populace, which in Ravok meant the majority of the aforementioned populace, cared less when the people dying were slaves.
Faval stood from his seat and walked away from the ring as a clear victor was shown bludgeoning what remained of his opponent's head in to the dirt. The boy hated it here and it shouted at every moral fiber he had in his possession, but those moral fibers tended to shut up when faced with hunger and the fact remained that people were more than willing to pay for all the violence they loved to sow upon each other and even further still, cementing the unknowing powers that be's genuine distaste for the young Faval, the best place to find that kind of work was here, in this den of inequity. It did not take long either. Someone was already there, advertising the need for hardened killers to play bodyguard for an expedition. It didn't really sound like anything Faval hadn't dealt with before and it would hopefully mean getting out of Ravok for awhile. Seamlessly, Faval wove into the crowd the man had gathered as they left the area, off toward the assembly area for the hired help on this expedition and, hopefully, toward money to eat on for awhile.
When he arrived, he was asked to show a demonstration of his combat abilities. Knowing that he specialized in the bow, they had led him to a wooded clearing with targets painted on a myriad of trees and gave him the simple instruction to demonstrate. He wasn’t sure if he had a time limit, or any restrictions imposed, or even if they wanted him to hit all of the targets, but if there was one thing Faval excelled at, it was showboating. There was a lot that could go wrong to cause an arrow to miss. Slight fluctuations in the wind, slight fluctuations in the string, slight fluctuations in the shooter’s concentration, all could turn a clean shot to a hamstring in to a minor annoyance to a heavily armored foe or a clean shot to the heart in to an aimless piece of wood. Very, very many things could go wrong while shooting an arrow, especially with a weapon as cumbersome as a longbow. Consequently, Faval was had to work hard at overcoming those minute annoyances that could completely throw the accuracy of a shot out of balance. The most common offenders were an angry person running at you with a sharp object. A large, muscular, smelly man with a sword always managed to make the shooter clutch his bow a little tighter as he was sprinting, angry and grunting like a pig, straight toward you to skewer you like a piece of meat.
Faval situated himself quite snugly in a small clearing that they had dragged him to. Exhaling deeply, Faval unslung the bow from his shoulder and retrieved an arrow from the quiver strapped to his back as he positioned his legs shoulder width apart and perpendicular to the surface of a nearby tree. Tilting the bow downward, the boy nocked the arrow before slowly pulling the feathered shaft back. Slowly and in one fluid motion, Faval lifted the bow as he was drawing, pulling it back, aiming it at the ground and then behind him all while slowly pulling on the bowstring, rotating it in orbit around a central point. By the time Faval had pulled the weapon back to that central point, his cheek, the arrow head was pointed straight for the back of a yet to be marred tree. Looking down the shaft of the arrow at his target, after waiting a few moments for his breathing to steady, Faval released the dangerous projectile and caused it to hurtle through the air at dangerous speeds. The sound of the weapon crashing in to the tree reverberated through the small little tree ridden shooting gallery, the sudden impact scattering the birds that had made it their home.
Faval was not yet finished. Using the fluid footwork he had gained from his rigorous forays in to the martial arts. The boy took a wide step forward before turning his foot inward. Using the resistance of the ground, Faval dragged himself in a wide arching movement, from a practical standpoint used to evade an incoming projectile…or the aforementioned smelly ogre with a metal stick before again positioning his legs shoulder length apart. As he did this, the boy retrieved from his quiver and attempted to nock his next arrow and fire it at a different tree. He had managed to ready the shot and his aim was true, the arrow smacked in to the tree with a satisfying thud. He was not intending to stop there however. Faval repeated the process, pivoting and dragging all while simultaneously retrieving, nocking, positioning for, and firing the arrow at the next tree in the sequence, striking each target in turn as he weaved through the trees, which honestly wasn’t that unimpressive a feat for such a cumbersome weapon. Longbows in general generally promoted a situated roost from which to shoot from and were generally too large and unwieldy to be used in this way. As Faval pierced the spot he was actually aiming for on the eighteenth shot, the boy’s feet ground to a halt. Two arrows presently remained in the quiver as Faval let out an exasperated sigh. He had plenty more at home, even if he managed to lose these, but they were still stupidly expensive things. Letting his bow drop to his side, Faval set off in to the surrounding area to collect his arrows, and probably start the whole process again if it was required. It wasn’t, he had earned the job.
Two days would elapse since Faval had been given the job and the people who had come with Faval from The Pit had all either been vetted out or had left due to lack of interest in playing bodyguard to a bunch of snooty rich people, not enough blood he supposed. A concern did rise rather quickly however once the details of their expedition were received and Faval was informed that he would have to acquire a mount of the journey. This presented multiple problems for the boy, as he did not have much in the way of money or in experience with equestrian purchases. This led them to the present day, where Faval was forced to watch as a half naked woman, something he had also noticed as any man with functioning genitalia tends to, gave her name and had a glorious ebony horse led toward her. After watching an admiring the exchange, every facet of it, his eyes slowly trailed down to the mount he would be spending the trip on. Faval wasn’t even sure it was a horse he bought at this point. The thing was smaller than its counterparts, smelled like it rolled around in its own droppings, was cross eyed, and Faval was relatively certain there was some sort of fungus growing behind its ears.
“You, boy, name.”
If Faval wasn’t so well practiced being considered a second-class citizen, he might have been offended at the woman’s warm reception and her horse looking like an actual horse being so quickly transitioned in to a gruff command. While he didn’t have anything he especially wanted to hide, Faval had learned rather early in life, and further had the lesson reinforced in Ravok, that deception, even meaningless deception, was a useful tool and for the time being, these people did not need to know what his name was. It wasn’t pertinent to his ability to keep watch over and the aforementioned snooty rich people, nor his capacity to use his bow. Faval slung the longbow over his shoulder and gave a small little boy before excitedly giving off the first name that came to his mind.
“I’m Pierre Cuzmibladdersemptee, sir.”
Whether the man didn’t get the joke, genuinely thought that was anyone’s name ever, or simply was a humorless, dour individual, the result was the same. The man gave an annoyed growl, like a disgruntled professor taking role, before moving on with whatever else he needed to take care of. The worked out perfectly well for Faval as he could spend his time figuring out how to make his cross-eyed horse move again. Nothing eventful would happen for awhile after that point, the four of them pulling up the rear rode in silence and Faval spent the majority of the time listening to the people who were determined to seem more and more petty an annoying with each passing moment. He had taken the opportunity to steal a few glances at the three companions he would have for this expedition and he wasn’t sure if he was enthused or not by the results. He had already gotten a decent enough look at the woman, Kaie they called her, earlier and while he certainly wasn’t above taking more looks, he was rather intent on staying focused. He wasn’t all that excited to die out here because he was more fixated on a more liberal style of dress. The second was a giant of a man, not really unique in Faval’s line of work but not necessarily less impressive and the more Faval glanced at him, the more he was reminded of the aforementioned ogre with a pointy stick. The third was, well, odd. At a cursory glance, he seemed normal, probably closer to Faval’s level of normalcy than the other two, until he looked at his face. Faval knew no reason for the heterochromia he was witnessing and it provoked a severe amount of curiosity. He would probably find an incredibly inappropriate time to ask about it later.
Before he could further deliberate on when that incredibly inappropriate time should be, their happy silence was broken by Kaie. Her words were, well, amusing. Not in a condescending way, to be clear, but amusing all the same. He wasn’t accustomed to hearing a female voice speaking with such clear, direct, and vulgar tones. It was fun.
“I don’t know, I’m not really from around here, with a name like Everstone Forest though I imagine we’ll know it when we s…”
And they would. It did not take much in this world to put one’s relevance in to perspective, but Faval was again readily humbled at the sight. As the party ahead of them quickly pressed in to the bulk of the Everstone Forest, Faval slowly meandered in after them, his face full of childish wonder as he looked up at the stones. After he caught up to the group before him, the boy hopped down off his “horse” and watched as the people he was meant to be protecting scurried their eyes over every nook, cranny, corner, crevice, or synonym for those words that they could see from their position. Maybe this would be more fun than he thought.
OOCI figured it was alright to use the NPC, if it's not let me know and I'll edit.