(Flashback) Here Be Monsters!

by **Brodon Windriver** on June 3rd, 2012, 11:45 pm

60th day of Winter, 511 AV

Fortunately, it took no combat skills to chop dried grass with a sickle. Nor did it take a weaponmaster's skill to dig a buffer of dirt around a campfire with a shovel. Brodon endured some kidding from the guides and warriors safeguarding the mission. After all, he had ASKED to join them. He would do his part, and, as his part on this team had no specific designation, he had no basis to argue his being named "team drudge".

He took it in stride, the extra packing of the cartographer's supplies, the clean-up of the campsites, the washing up, the latrine duty. The warriors saw to their own weapons, the cartographer to his own inks, papers and precision tools. In fact, they were not about to let him touch such personal things. To him fell the care of the mounts, the aforementioned domestic chores and anything else deemed too mundane for a 'non-drudge member', as they would say, only half in jest.

Watchmen and scouts had reported a new crater to the Southwest of Endrykas' current location and a cartographer had been tasked with committing its location and features to the volumes of charts the Drykas had. Anything else of note would be likewise charted. Geysers, null web zones, signs of giant snake territorial areas to avoid.

This close to Eyktol, the terrain, though still grassy, was increasingly broken and rocky shelves rose up to form small cliffs, many with scrubby trees. Brodon had heard someone mention a hawk and he had begged leave to accompany the crew on its mission. His near-obsession with falconry was in full bloom and he was hoping to capture a chick to raise.

They were three days southwest of Endrykas, still several more from the border of Eyktol in the same direction when he saw the hawk. Circling wide, lazy laps around a square mile area. Watching it, Brodon was enrapt with its majesty, its command of the air, its perfection of build and purpose. He informed the Headman that he had "seen the hawk and that it was time to allow the agreed-upon two day- "

The Headman stopped him with an upraised hand, "Yes, young Brodon, I am aware of the arrangements that were made. We will make our camp here for two days and condense our collected information while you go make your attempt." He smiled at the young man, "And may Eywaat grant you success."

by **Brodon Windriver** on June 17th, 2012, 6:58 am

With a 'whooop!' Brodon set out. He had everything ready, his bow with his game arrows, the blunt kind, made to stun, not kill. He had his whip and staff, and a net, along with hammer and spikes to restrain the mother hawk upon its recovery from being stunned. He had bait and preground meat to feed the hatchling he hoped to acquire. Most important though, he had a scent-negating oil to apply to his hands at the right time. If he got his human scent anywhere near the nest, the mother may abandon the hatchlings.

He did not yet know whether the nest was on the cliff face somewhere or in one of the trees that often grew in clump around these craters. Water was occasionally found in them, leftover from geyser action. Often it was not fit for human consumption until a water-purification treatment was pursued. There were tablets for this, and though the party had a few, he did not bring any along. He had his canteen.

He made his way slowly, indirectly, towards the area the hawk seemed to have staked out as hers. It was unlikely any swarming flyers, like Snarlwings were anywhere nearby or the hawk would not have built her nest here. The sulphurous odor in the air made it equally unlikely that any water in the crater would draw grasslands beasts very regularly, but there would probably be some. Fortunately the changing terrain featured much shorter grass this close to Eyktol, so the ambush tactics of most plains predators would not be a problem. Of course if some wandering glassbeaks SAW him, it wouldn't matter, but at least he would have some forewarning. The giant snakes were what concerned him most. He really didn't know much about them.

After a few hours, he had worked his way to within fifty yards of the cliff base. He rummaged through his backpack, removing the non-scent oil and rubbed some on his hands. He then removed a dead rat and left it in an open space he could watch from behind a nearby boulder. He pulled out some twine and a pair of spikes and looped the twine around the rat, staking it to the ground.

After an hour or so of waiting, the hawk made its way over and began circling the bait, surveying the area for threats. Brodon ached all over from holding still so long, but it was worth it when the hawk began a slow, spiraling descent to the bait. It tried to swoop by and clutch it in its talons, but the loop of twine forced it to let go as it rose and looped back around. It, again, circled for several minutes before making another attempt. This time, it landed several yards away and made its way towards the rat in short hops. Brodon, his aches forgotten, slowly raised the bow, the game arrow already notched, and waited.

The breeze was light so most of his trajectory adjustment was only to account for drop. As the hawk leaned in to tear a strip of flesh from the rat, he pulled back, steadied and fired. The arrow caught the hawk in the back, sending it tumbling to lie sprawled a yard or two away. Brodon jumped up and ran to it, unfurling the net as he approached. He draped the net over it and quickly hammered in several spikes to keep it down. Now he ran to the tree. The nest was on the cliff face, but he could see a spot where he could jump from the tree. Everything was going well.

by **Brodon Windriver** on July 1st, 2012, 9:18 pm

He started to climb, grinning brightly. He had not expected it to be this easy. Occasionally, he had to use his whip to lash a branch too high to reach with his hands and use it like a rope until he could grab hold.

At thirty feet, or so, he could see exactly where the nest was on the cliff face. There was no branch perfectly suited to shinny out to the nest, so he decided to climb to a higher branch to make his jump and work his way down the cliff to the nest.

When he got to about forty feet, there was an odd, subtle tremor. He looked around across the landscape as it faded, uncertain of which direction it had originated. It seemed to come from the crater. he was about to dismiss it as subterranean water pressure when something odd about the crater caught his notice. From this high angle he could see that there was a tunnel at the base of the crater. This was not particularly odd since many of these craters were the result of underground water pressure finding release at surface points that were weak, structurally. This often created sinkholes like this, with water vent tunnels within their sunken base.

What was odd about this one was the colors. Brodon was aware that minerals, finding their way to the surface as geysers released pressure, often left patterns of color that vividly displayed the character of the geyser's directional tendency and range, as well as the types of minerals to be found nearby. There was no "rainbow" effect against the walls of the crater, nor was there the unique water-wear type of smooth erosion formed by ages of geyser activity against the stones.

The only color besides the basic light gray-brown of the stone was an odd, shiny black. But it was not in sedentary layers of the crater wall, like obsidian or onyx would be, it was scattered randomly, like some god had tossed a handful of black salt into the crater. Also, there were large loose rocks laying about in an odd, scattered array, rather than all having been washed in one direction, reflecting millennia of water flow. There WAS a semblance of a pattern to it, but Brodon could not place what it indicated. If anything, it reminded him of a child's finger-painting, but with fingertips ten feet wide.

by **Brodon Windriver** on July 8th, 2012, 5:33 am

Brodon shrugged off his curiosity over the oddities of the crater and refocused on the hawk's nest, now sightly below him on an outcropping on the cliff face. A branch another ten feet above him looked sturdy enough to hold his weight. There was one closer but it didn't look thick enough, so he kept climbing.

He heard a feral grunt below and looked back to the ground. A sick feeling overcame him as he saw a trio of Tsana snuffling towards the area. His apprehension grew as he saw that their course would bring them upon the netted hawk.

He looked back at the nest on the rock face, vulnerable, just waiting to give up an hatchling for falconry training. But with the long narrow snouts they had, one of them was sure to slip it under the net and snatch the hawk mother up and eat her. Even though this would not prevent him from grabbing one pf the young and waiting until the tsana left, his love of birds could not tolerate such a betrayal of honor. He only had enough specially ground and softened meat for one bird, he would be killing the others one way another.

'Yup, it was going too easily, something had to go wrong' he grumbled to himself as he climbed back down, frequently just dropping from one branch to another in his haste. Ten feet from the bottom he saw one of the tsanas detect the hawk, which had come out of its shock and started to screech and bite at the net. The tsana moved quickly to the edge of the net and began to pry its snout under the edge.

Brodon yelled and waved his arms and dropped through the last several branches, tucking his knees as he landed to roll across the ground. He came up to see the tsanas turning away from the hawk to approach him. He turned and started climbing again, yelling and waving any time he had a free hand for a moment.

The tsanas bumped against the tree, not ramming it, but pushing against it as they rubbed their sides on it. All brodon had on him was his whip and his backpack, which was emptied for placing a hatchling inside until he got back to the party. He hadn't taken the time to throw his bow and quiver over his shoulder. There hadn't been time and he doubted that the few normal arrows he had would penetrate the thick hide of the tsanas. His staff was just laying on the ground several yards away, but he didn't see what good it would do.

For all that his mission had gone wrong, he was rewarded to see the hawk mother fight its way out of the net and fly, screeching angrily, back to its nest. Either the tsanas realized in some feral way that they had been denied their free morsel, or the angry sound of the hawk set them off as well. They started to batter at the tree trunk with their tails and bump harder as they bashed sideways against it.

At first, Brodon relaxed, expecting to wait them out. They would give up soon enough, he figured. Suddenly, as one of the monsters rammed its shoulder against the trunk, there was a loud, but muffled crack and a line of dirt jumped in a position consistent with one of the major roots anchoring the tree to the spot. The tsanas stopped just long enough to look up at Brodon with a hungry look. Then they doubled their efforts. Soon each hit made the tree shake so much Brodon had difficulty holding on.

'This doesn't look good' he thought to himself grimly.

by **Brodon Windriver** on July 10th, 2012, 3:52 am

Soon the tree was leaning precariously. Brodon hoped the tsanas would knock the tree into the cliff, where he could jump to relative safety, but the tsanas were apparently smarter than that. They got on the side of the tree closest to the cliff and began battering it back the other way.

There were several more muffled cracks and clouds of dirt swirled around the base as the roots came free, loosing the dusty soil as they pulled up and out with the leaning of the tree.

Brodon was already calculating what sort of success he would have nothing but a whip, and it was not good. He would have to try for sensitive spots. Pain was the only thing he could deliver with a whip that might deter these creatures, because, like arrows, he was unlikely to do any true damage.

As the tree finally, irrevocably leaned into its fall, he snapped the whip at the face of one of them. It was closer than he realized, and the whip lashed around its narrow snout a few times. An idea occurred to him and he swung his end of the whip around a stout branch at it's thickest point where it connected to the trunk. As the tree fell, the root mass swung up, catching the whip and pulling it into the air. Having looped his end around the branch gave Brodon enough leverage to keep his grip despite the pressure. The tsana was yanked up off its front feet, low squealing roars of pain and fear filling the air as it dangled, its rear feet skipping barely over the ground.

There was a loud snap and the one tsana gave a crazed howl as it shook its snout loose of the whip and ran off. Brodon cursed that its neck hadn't broken, but at least it appeared to have had enough. That left two and they didn't seem to share their fellow's anxiety.

The tree hit fully and Brodon was shaken into the midst of its mass of branches. This protected him briefly until the tsanas perceived the angle of the branches and moved out to the perimeter to work their way in along the lengths of them. Brodon managed to climb the mass of branches and roots to again put the mass of the tree between him and them, freeing his whip as he went. He saw a large root broken clean and realized that was what had snapped moments before.

He jumped down to the loosened ground and looked around quickly to see if luck might have brought some of his party along to check his progress. But no such luck, he was on his own. he noticed a lot of newly loosened rocks and another idea occurred to him. He started grabbing them and stuffing them into his largely empty backpack as he listened for the sounds of the tsanas coming around to get at him again.

He saw the shadow of one growing in size beyond the span of the roots and swung the rock pack once in a full circle for momentum and then carrying through in the direction of the tsana's anticipated arrival.

by **Brodon Windriver** on July 13th, 2012, 2:58 am

His impromtu "flail" struck with a loud CLACK as the monster's open snout was slammed shut, its head jerking up with the impact. It stumbled briefly from surprise and Brodon pressed the advantage with head shot after head shot. The creature backed up clumsily, trying to win clearance to swing its tail. Instead, it got itself entangled in the roots and branches as Brodon continued to rain what punishment he could before the pack tore open.

Instinct saved him from disaster as he remembered the second Tsana and swung around to see it starting to swing its tail at him. He tried to jump to avoid the impact, but had his feet swept from beneath him by the strike and fell on his face. Abandoning the pack, he rolled blindly towards the tree mass and was fortunate to find clearance beneath the trunk, held a couple feet above ground by the mass of roots and branches. He knew he only had seconds before one of the monsters would come back around.

He sprang to his feet and caught sight of his whip, still caught up in the roots and tried to pull it free. It was still caught, but his efforts loosened the root that had been snapped clean by the first tsana's weight. he grabbed it at both ends, treating it as a staff and thrust it horizontally into the approaching tsana's mouth, ducking below the jaw and ramming it into the tender membrane at the joint.

The creature instinctively backed up, and again, Brodon surged forward to keep the improvised staff in place. The tail from the second beast caught his ankles and lifted him off his feet to fall prone in the dust. But he maintained his hold on the length of root. He rolled in the direction of the second tsana and caught the tip of the root on the inside of its teeth as it snapped at him. Even as the tsana leaned in to tear at him with its teeth, he jammed the root home down the creature's throat and rolled out from under it.

The creature backed away, choking and coughing, trying in vain to shake the root free of its mouth. Brodon saw the pack of rocks sitting forgotten and dove for it. The other tsana slammed its tail into his side and propelled him into the tree trunk painfully. As he dropped, gritting his teeth against bruised ribs, he immediately rolled to the other side of the trunk, grabbing the rock pack as he did. He saw the snout of the pursuing tsana snap under the trunk behind him as he staggered with sudden exhaustion around the root mass.

The tsana with the root in its throat had it's head down, the end of its snout braced on the ground as it tried to dig the root from its throat with its claws. Restraining himself from shouting a war cry, Brodon rushed in from its blind spot and slammed the rock pack with all his strength at the point where the snout joined the creatures head. There was a sickening, muffled crack and the creature went through a seizure of agonized contortions, howling in pain and staggering away.

Brodon turned to see the last tsana turn its hungry focus on him. He made to swing the pack to gain momentum but its lack of weight informed him that the pack had finally split, spilling its contents and becoming useless. He had nothing left to fight with. No whip, no staff, no bow, not even a stick and he was exhausted. For no sensible reason, he threw the torn pack at the creature as he turned and started to run. He actually gained a few steps for his effort as the creature snatched it from the air and tore it to shreds in fury. Then it charged after Brodon, who found himself spent beyond the ability to do more than jog. Adrenaline had got him this far, but now, it too, was gone.

by **Brodon Windriver** on July 14th, 2012, 5:19 pm

Spent beyond recovery, his hip deeply bruised by the tsana's tail strike, and realizing his sense of direction had betrayed him, Brodon found himself approaching the crater. Even as death stormed behind him, the drumming of its feet growing swiftly louder, its snarls more furious, he noted another oddity that had escaped him before. The number of large stones was greatest right at the rim. Every natural phenomenon that came to mind would be more likely to shake rocks OFF the edge, not pile them up. What force would bring rocks UP from below?

He cursed his distraction as his foot caught on a small stone and spilled him face first into the very rocks he was only just speculating on. He heard the tsana approach and curled into a ball as the shadow of his destruction loomed over him with a loud low hiss. An odd bellow mixed with the hiss and death did not come as anticipated, though the sounds of feral struggle and flesh colliding and tearing filled his ears.

Shadows passed back and forth over him and, one time, a terrible mass of weight thrashed upon him, driving the air from his lungs and leaving him with the certainty of broken ribs. He was sure that it was only the presence of the large stones that kept him from being crushed. With the last of his endurance he dared a look. What he saw both horrified him and left him awestruck with amazement. The tsana, this huge beast that was going to crush him like a child's toy, was, itself, a toy in the mouth of a snake of gargantuan size. The snake's mouth was fully closed, the protruding ends of the tsana's remains, swollen from the crushing pressure on its midsection. The snake must have been a hundred yards long and five feet thick in the middle, but he could only guess as it pulled itself back into the crater with its meal.

All his questions about the oddities of the crater were answered as he considered the effect such a creature would have on the terrain of the crater it had claimed as its den. Shiny black scales laying all about, a snakelike effect to the patterns of the lay of rocks, the odd build-up of rocks at the craters edge. Now he smelled that reptilian odor. How had he missed it before?

Brodon lay still as he pondered, he knew enough about snakes to realize that in only a few minutes the snake would, most likely, be gorging itself on the tsana and would not be inclined to pursue him if it detected him. Where had this monstrosity come from? Were there more? Everyone new there were big snakes in the Sea of Grass, but nothing like this. A mutation of the recent djed storm perhaps? He would not claim to know, but he would certainly inform the mapping party of its presence.

He tried to stand, but his body hurt terribly just breathing, so he crawled a while. Fate was with him and he happened upon his staff, which he employed as a crutch for the remainder of his trip back to camp. With this finding, the mappers made a litter for him and he spent the rest of the journey being called 'snake-food' instead of 'drudge'. he would have joined in their laughter, but it hurt too much.

by **Lariat** on July 22nd, 2012, 3:12 am

Brodon Windriver

Upon looking upon your CS, I've noticed that your ledger is not yet up to date, and thus I have withheld the grade on this thread until it is. Notify me as soon as that is so and I will see this thread graded as expeditiously as I can.

Sincerely,
Lariat.

by **Jackalope** on September 30th, 2012, 4:17 am

Results!

Brodon :

Enjoyable thread, just keep in mind the notes I sent you about skill levels in future threads! Let me know if you wanna discuss anything via PM.