Solo Watch And Learn

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The Wilderness of Cyphrus is an endless sea of tall grass that rolls just like the oceans themselves. Geysers kiss the sky with their steamy breath, and mysterious craters create microworlds all their own. But above all danger lives here in the tall grass in the form of fierce wild creatures; elegant serpents that swim through the land like whales through the ocean and fierce packs of glassbeaks that hunt in packs which are only kept at bay by fires. Traverse it carefully, with a guide if possible, for those that venture alone endanger themselves in countless ways.

Watch And Learn

Postby Konrad Venger on January 24th, 2016, 8:56 am

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12th Bell - 88th Day of Winter, 515AV - South of the Vaspura River, Sea of Grass

Konrad had always thought of himself as a hunter. Word came to him through the streets, like rumors and wishes to kill were whispered up from the brick and the granite, and he went out into the city to do murder. Many times he knew where to find his quarry; often he had to go hunting. Sniffing the air and scouring old haunts; greasing palms or just breaking them to get titbits and good directions; then he struck, and dependent on his mood and the contract, it was either quick and precise, or slow and... leisurely.

The "real thing", as it were, was a much ruder awakening.

Crouching behind the Drykas with a crossbow in his hands, he realized with discomfort that he didn't know what he was doing. It was mud and dirt under his feet now, not cobbles and stone. There were no streets to navigate, nor old faces he could find. Everything had to be scrutinized minutely, and Konrad was fast understanding he needed whole new eyes to survive out there.

The two stalkers stopped for the fiftieth time, exchanging hushed words in their willowy, breezy dialect. Konrad wasn't too surprised that a bunch of the tattooed horsemen would be with the caravan. No-one knew the grasslands like the Horse Lords, though he wondered what could have brought them from the clean, open spaces of the Sea of Grass to the choking city of Sunberth.

Not then, though. Then he was watching, and hopefully learning.

One of the horsemen griped his bow and arrow in one hand, keeping it almost taut, and pointed with his other hand at a mark in the mud. Konrad edged closer and saw it was... a track. Not like a cat or dog. Something with less toes, by the looks of it. He could see two large ones up front, two smaller ones behind.

"What is it?"

They looked behind them at the interloper. Fucking pillar of shit on their backs, slowing them down. Some Sunberth scum still wearing that stupid hat, of all things, with a crossbow he didn't know how to use.

Then they remembered why that wasn't exactly true.

"Deer," the younger one said hurriedly, nodding down to the track. "Not long ago. See? No water in the hole it made. Not enough time."

"Where they headin'?"

"Where all animals go,"
the older Drykas said, almost absentmindedly, mind firmly on the hunt and the kill, not his chattering partners. "To eat, to drink, to fuck or to sleep."

Konrad wanted to shake him by his blonde beard and ask him what the petch that was meant to mean, but reined it back. No. He needed them. They knew things he didn't, knew ways and skills that made them valuable. Besides, the whole caravan saw the three of them leave, one of several hunting parties sent scattering out from their campsite to bring home game. Him returning alone would prompt... questions.

Which you could answer, maybe. But they're still useful.

On they went, sliding through rank after rank of tall, cold grass. Konrad could stand at his full height and jump straight up and still not see over the top of them. Not that it would have been much of a view: it was the same for countless miles, so he understood. The only reason the Kabrin Road had been hacked out of it was because the grasses were thinner and didn't grow back that close to the Suvan Sea.

Sea of Grass. Kabrin Road. Suvan Sea. Never thought I'd see any of it until-

"Hey?!" The Younger snapped him out of his reverie and jutted his chin at the quivering patch of grass The Elder had vanished into. "C'mon!"

For now, Konrad did as he was told. They'd been out for well over three bells now, wandering a path that he could barely see, but the Drykas could follow blinded. He'd seen grasses trampled down that spoke of nests for departed animals; longer stretches where they'd gone back and forth, feedings grounds and most of all, water holes. The three had bounced from pond to pond but, save for chittering cries and distant, fleeing hooves, they'd not seen anything.

This is hunting? Bloody boring...

But it was necessary, and Konrad assumed some sort of... patience, was part of that, too. So he shook off the mud caking his boots and kept walking, following the Drykas until he-

"Shyke!"

"Yes. Good for you."


That was The Elder, of course, caustic bastard that he seemed to be. As Konrad was trying to smear the smelly lump off his feet, the Drykas were gathering around it like some holy relic. Sniffing and poking and... oh, gods.

"Half a bell," The Elder said, spitting out what he'd just tasted. "Male, I'd say."

"Did... Did he just-"

"You wanted to learn,"
said The Younger with a shrug. "One of the lessons."

Konrad was about to tell him where he could shove that lesson when a twig snapped so clear and lonely in the grass that it was practically a thunderclap. All three men raised their bows and started forward, cautious, slow, moving on the balls of their feet and-

Wet ground, remember? Feet on wet ground so you make less noise. Dry things snap; wet things just... something else.

Time slowed as they heard their meal snuffling yards away. Konrad felt his senses sharpen from the focus. Things so small and meaningless suddenly became clear, from the slip and slide of his boots to the bird calls above them. And the animal, whatever it was, as they got closer...

"There she is."

The Younger's voice was barely a suggestion of a whisper. They were too close to screw up now. Beyond a curtain of glass, Konrad could see a definite shape. Four long legs, thin at the bottom, powerful towards the top of a thick torso. A furry neck that was dipping down, head unseen. Teeth chewing and black antlers standing out sharply in fits and starts, swaying this way and that.

"We shoot as one," The Elder said, but Konrad already had his crossbow resting at his shoulder. "Don't ruin this by-"

Oh, go fuck yourself.

Konrad remembered his practice. He tucked the bow tight to his shoulder, cocked his head so he was aiming straight down the handle, the long groove. Lined up the nut and the bolt and the tip of it touching the blurry shape behind the grass and finally-

-pulling the trigger-

"Damn you!"

It was a hit, but not a kill. The bolt flew in a blur and whistled across the narrow clearing. Konrad gave a quick, ugly grin as he heard it thunk into something not wood, not grass, but meaty and suddenly braying out in pain, a splash of scarlet into the yellow and green and brown-

-and vanishing from sight again.

"Idiot!" The Elder raged, charging forward with his bow still at the ready. "Now we have to chase it down!"

Konrad stuck his foot in the stirrup, yanked the string back to the catch, replaced the bolt and-

Fuck. Downside of these things: take an age to load.

-plunged into the stiff grass the Drykas had already disappeared into, pursuing the pursuers as the deer tried to outrun Dira with a crossbow bolt buried in its back.
Last edited by Konrad Venger on February 4th, 2016, 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Tricks Of The Light

Postby Konrad Venger on February 4th, 2016, 1:28 am

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The Drykas were right: the deer bolted and ate up the ground between them like it was nothing. But while he'd missed the killing shot, Konrad had opened up something important with that bolt.

A blind man could follow this trail.

Blood was spattered over the ground, the snow, glistening on the fresh mud and spattered across the grass like an ugly, sticky blight on the vegetation. Konrad may have lagged behind while reloading, but it didn't take him long to catch up. All he had to do was catch up and-

The sellsword slowed, then stopped a pace later. The rush and crunch and rustle of the Drykas had vanished. He listened to the noise of the Sea, the wind sighing through the grass, and on it... heard something shift. Something that sounded like one footstep... followed by another.

Must be close.

Staying on the blood trail, it wasn't long before Konrad could see squat, still shapes veiled by the ranks of grass. Lithe, patient men in the minimum of clothing, bow notched by lowered, eyes fixed on the future-

-which Konrad could hear, too. Braying piteously. No longer moving gracefully, without sound, but blundering, collapsing every few feet. Desperate and dying and Konrad grinned.

Easy meat.

Of course, the Drykas knew he was approaching before he'd even fully glimpsed them. The Younger jerked his head around and scowled above a finger pressed to his lips. Konrad just nodded and joined them, moving in a crouch through the mud, set hard and solid like chocolate left in an ice box. The Elder had no eyes for him; only for his boy, his arrow and the target before him.

Konrad watched the old hunter. His breathing stilled after he lined up his shot to his satisfaction. His chest ceased to heave and his arms tremble, and before Konrad could open his mouth to whisper a question-

TWANG!

The arrow flew through the half-hidden stag's throat like the Elder had fired from mere feet away, instead of close to eighty. Konrad shook his head minutely at the sheer... artistry, of it. He'd been killing for nigh-on four decades, and the closest he came to appreciation of his fellow man was meeting one who knew how to efficiently end lives.

"Good shot."

"Of course,"
the Elder said, getting up and speaking with a half-sneer tugging at his lips. "Now go do your job, remuk'koz."

The human's appreciation died in his eyes; suddenly they were cold and empty again, like looking glasses into a deep Winter's night. Again, the familiar, ancient compulsion itched in his fingers. Again, he squashed it. They were useful, and they were his shield out here in the Sea of Grass. So instead he swallowed the word they threw at him with a chuckle and a spit to the side and walked over to the deer, pulling the short pole strapped to his back free as he went.

"Meat mule", he thought with disgust as he set down the pole and crouched by the dead animal. Fucking charming...

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Tricks Of The Light

Postby Konrad Venger on February 4th, 2016, 4:59 pm

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Konrad wondered why only he was saddled with the mocking Drykas title (no pun intended), when it was both him and the Younger who were carrying the deer. He assumed it was a matter of usefulness. Yes, the Younger had to sling the other end of the pole over his shoulder when they carried the deer back, but he was also a hunter. He could track and spot and shoot and knew how their prey thought. Konrad was just, well...

A mule. For now.

He squelched through the mud and grimaced as more than just wet dirt soiled his boots. Another perk of usefulness: the Younger was in front, and Konrad was behind. Meaning that as the deer dripped and drained vital fluids onto the ground, Konrad had to walk through it.

He stifled. He repressed. He held it in because it was more... prudent, to do so. He was getting experience, even training, just by being out here with them. He didn't even have to pay for it. Lending his muscle and hands to them was enough. If that meant he had to suck up a few grunted horselord insults, so be it.

Ain't gonna be useful forever, he thought pleasantly to himself. And come that day...

Between the two of them, the deer wasn't that heavy. It had been quick work for Konrad to bind the front and back feet together with twine, then thread the pole between the legs. The Younger had taken one end, him the other, then they'd hoisted it upright, swinging gently between them with each step, head lolling back so it scraped the lower grasses as they walked.

The Elder led them, of course. Their trail back to the caravan might as well have been written in rainbows, for all the difficult the lined and laconic Drykas had in finding it. But they weren't too long back before he stopped, throwing a hand up suddenly.

The Younger stopped dead and Konrad nearly ran into his back, deer and all. A frown crushed his eyes and he opened his mouth to speak, before...

"... horseshit?"

The Elder just grunted and took a detour. Konrad watched and followed his nose, his Drykas' legs taking them to the same place. A pile of fresh horse apples were steaming in Syna's light and the old man crouched down to sniff them closer. Konrad only knew that he recognized the smell, and horses meant one thing: company in the grass.

Which never boded well, as far as he was concerned.

"Not long," the Elder said, poking the pile with the tip of his bow and watching it sink in. "Hour. Maybe two." He looked up and down and Konrad could see the grasses trampled and ground vines torn up. The Elder hawked and spat to the side, fingers brushing over the hooves. "Fresh horses. Nails have been cut."

"Jus' a huntin' party, though?"


As if possessed by one, wry mind, both Elder and Younger turned to the damned outsider who presumed to tell the horselords how to observe the passing of their own kind. The Elder cocked an eyebrow and nodded at Konrad.

"Oh? Why say this?"

Konrad settled the pole enough on his shoulder to get one hand free, pointing up and down the narrow furrow of trampled grass.

"No wagon marks inna' ground. Just horses, yeah?"

The Elder's eyes didn't lose his gleam of cynical amusement, but he favored the outsider with a nod at least. Then he muttered something to the Younger, who guffawed while looking right at Konrad, and the Sunberthian worked his jaw left and right and reminded himself he still needed them. Not just for hunting, or tracking, but because any man that could put an arrow through another's heart at a hundred paces had definite use on a caravan.

"Somethin' funny?"

"He said 'So, you have eyes, even if you don't see too good,"
the Younger translated helpfully, smirking all the while. "But you're probably right. Not wide enough, no wagon ruts... just a hunting party. But that's still might be a problem."

"Why?"


The Younger tightened his grip on his end of the pole and they started walking again, the Elder casting one baleful look back at the droppings and tracks as he left. The Younger sighed and spoke with the air of a man who didn't count himself among the "they" anymore.

"Because if they're sending out hunters, the pavilion won't be far behind."

"Pavi-what?"

"The rest, outsider. Just keep walking."


Squelch. Konrad cursed and did as he was fucking told.

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Note: As of Fall 517AV, Konrad is known only as "Hansel" in Endrykas
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Long is The Way and Hard
 
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Watch And Learn

Postby Konrad Venger on February 4th, 2016, 8:21 pm

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"Smells sweet, doesn't it?"

"Smells like shit'n blood mixed up with rotgut grog."

"What? You thought hunting was all stalk and shoot? Pah..."


Konrad had the perfect rejoinder ready for the old bastard but decided to keep it to himself. The man had a point, after all. The tracking, the stalking, the shooting and even the carrying back to a safe place, that was all easy. Just you eyes and your muscles. But what followed? That was what drained you.

At least as far as he was concerned.

Venger grimaced and beat down another wave of bile as he pulled another stringy length of guts and unidentifiable organs out of the gutted trunk of the deer. The legs and head head already been lopped off, the Younger at another table skinning the former. The latter was staring at them with the lazy, unconcerned glassiness of the decapitated.

The Elder put his hands right into the bloody, murky bowl of guts and that sight alone almost made Konrad retch. Especially when the crazy coot sniffed them.

"Ahhh... this was a young one. Very sweet. Salt these, boil them, coat in lard or fat... delicious."

"Fuck me, you people'll eat anything, won't you?"


The Elder gave him one of his best sneers and pointed out beyond the ground the caravan had trampled and crushed out for itself. Wagons and carts and horses had flattened or grazed down the high grass into a rough circle just off the Kabrin. Slaves shivered lightly in their cages whenever a fresh breeze wafted over the grass. Sellswords swaggered, drovers dithered a their animals, Konrad and his "partners" quartered and gutted and chopped for the nightly feed.

"Out here, you eat what you can find. Or you starve."

Konrad didn't even argue with that. In fact, he agreed. It sounded too much like the brutal street philosophy of home for him. In Sunberth, every chance you had to profit, to dominate, to survive, you had to take. Had to, because if you didn't, someone else would seize theirs and that could involve your head on a plate. The same was true in the Sea of Grass.

You're smart, you're strong, or you're dead.

"Go and make the fire stand like I show you," the Elder grumbled, wiping his hands on the fur of his breeches. "I'll finish cutting up."

Konrad went over to their fire and got the sticks together, the same ones the Elder had used before. Fortunately for him and his wilderness-ignorant ways, it was simple enough. Three long, straight sticks, nearly as long as he was tall, bound together at the top. Once the "legs" were spread and it was stood up on them, it looked like a skeletal, three-sided pyramid when Konrad had got it straddling the nearly-dead fire.

"That's the point," the Elder Dykas had told him, feeding dry moss and twigs into the flames so they spread, but did not grow. "Want smoke, not flame. Not cooking, smoking. Make the meat hard but can still eat. Insects and animals, less like it. Makes meat last longer, too."

His Common wasn't as fluent as the Younger, who'd apparently been immersed in among the outsiders for most of his adulthood, but Konrad got the idea. More to the point, he watched, too.

And he tried to copy.

The Elder watched the outsider with half an eye as he sliced the hunks of dripping deer in lean, thin strips. Not too much fat, he reminded himself as his curved, skinny knife worked under the surface. Makes the meat go bad quicker.

The scarred man poked around the fire at its base, making sure the coals were belching smoke like a bellows, but the only flame he could see was a faint glow from beneath the puffing grey clouds.

He learns.

The Elder and the Younger both dashed salt over the strips and carried them over to the fire. Konrad watched them hang the salted strips over the frame like laundry to the wind, instead of meat to smoke and Syna. The Elder told him that the smoke was to scare off pests, but Syna was the real benefit. It would dry the meat out, make it hard and tough and last ten times longer.

He fumbled around at the edge of the fire pit and found a bright little coal to light his pipe with. He picked it up with a leaf and dropped it into the bowl-

-just as the Elder marched over and glared down at him. Konrad stared back in something very much like confusion. He knew the man had seen him fight, and kill. But the Drykas had seen worse than some Sunberth scally, and he jerked a hand towards the blood-dripping skinning table.

"Think that clean itself? Go clean before you smoke. Then we finished."

Konrad looked at him carefully... and took a deep, rich pull from the tobacco. It crackled and hissed in the wooden hollow, in his mouth, down his throat and he savored it... before spitting into the bowl, killing the smoke and fire with a fizzle like a tiny scream.

"Yes, sir," Konrad said, smile reptilian and eyes alive with all his plans for the future. "Whatever you say."

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Note: As of Fall 517AV, Konrad is known only as "Hansel" in Endrykas
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Konrad Venger
Long is The Way and Hard
 
Posts: 923
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Watch And Learn

Postby Jasmine Stormblood on February 29th, 2016, 4:33 am

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Let me know if I am missing anything Konrad!

XP:

Socialization: 3 XP
Hunting: 1 XP
Tracking: 1 XP
Cooking: 1 XP
Crossbow: 2 XP
Wilderness Survival: 2 XP
Endurance: 1 XP

Lores:

Konrad: not a patient man
Wilderness Survival: mud hides footsteps
Wilderness Survival: eat whatever you can
Meat with little fat lasts far longer
Crossbows do not always make the kill


The Clan is Strength.
The Clan is Life.
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Jasmine Stormblood
The Clan is Strength, The Clan is Life
 
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