Solo The Lone Wolf

Job Thread - Zach helps Long Stan take down a wolf

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The Diamond of Kalea is located on Kalea's extreme west coast and called as such because its completely made of a crystalline substance called Skyglass. Home of the Alvina of the Stars, cultural mecca of knowledge seekers, and rife with Ethaefal, this remote city shimmers with its own unique light.

The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on November 30th, 2021, 9:17 pm

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52nd Fall, 521av.


It was early morning, the skies above Lhavit as grey as ever, clouds sending a heavy drizzle down to the ground below. The streets were fairly empty at this time of the morning, so Zach did not have much to hold him up as he wound his way over the Hunter’s Guild. He had his bow with him, newly purchased from The Outpost, though he was not optimistic that it would see any use today.

He had been walking for perhaps ten chimes, and already he was soaking wet. The Drykas barely noticed, for it was the norm these days, much to the disgruntlement of the majority of Lhavit’s residents. Zach slicked his dripping hair out of his eyes without breaking stride, and stepped around what looked like a particularly deep puddle.

When he pushed open the double oak doors to the Guild, the heat from the fire in the grate washed over him and he almost sighed. The large room was toasty warm, so he figured the fire must be almost continuously burning at this point. It was not a surprise to him, for people still needed to eat, so the hunters still needed to go out. Knowing there was a warm fire waiting for them when they returned would always make the work that little bit easier.

Zach stomped his boots on the entry mat before making his way to the bar near the back of the room. There weren’t many about at the moment, the really eager ones were likely already out in the Unforgiving, and others would have probably written the day off as soon as they had awoken and looked out their windows.

He ordered himself a soup and a bread roll for his breakfast, hoping something warm and filling would set him up well for what was likely to be a very damp day. He took it over to one of the sofas near the fire, intending to dry off as much as he could before heading back outside.

Footsteps approached behind him and a younger hunter Zach did not know well sunk into the chair next to him. The lad had mud nearly up to his knees, and he tipped his head back and closed his eyes, clearly revelling in the warmth the fire was belching out. Zach swallowed his mouthful of bread before speaking.
“That bad out there is it?”

His fellow cracked an eye and smiled ruefully. “Like the ground is trying to turn into a river.”
Zach grimaced, dunking another chunk of bread into the soup. “Hm, maybe I’ll give it a miss today then…” The Unforgiving was, well, unforgiving at the best of times, let alone when the weather had been this bad for this long. He had already experienced one mudslide, and one was enough to last him through to the end of his life.

He was musing on what to do with the day instead, mopping up the last of the soup, when Long Stan came over to stand in front of him.
“Big hunt planned today Zach?”
The Drykas shook his head. “Not anymore.” He tipped his head to indicate the younger hunter who appeared to now be asleep. “Says it’s turning into a bog out there today.”
Long Stan grinned. “Good, you want to come and give me a hand instead then?”

Zach chewed the last piece of bread and stood with a smile, placing the empty bowl on the closest table. Since he had returned to the city, Stan had seemed to have grown fond of him. Zach enjoyed the older hunter’s company and always learned a lot when they ventured out together.

“Sure, why not!”
He collected his bow from next to where he had been sat on the sofa and slung it over his back, and headed for the door after Long Stan.


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Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
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The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on November 30th, 2021, 9:59 pm

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The rain had mercifully turned from a downpour into a light mist in the short time Zach had been inside the Hunter’s Guild. His coat was still damp, but the waterproofing was doing its job, so thankfully he couldn’t feel the cold of it seeping through.

The pair of hunters made their way across the nearest bridge, and Zach suddenly realised he had no idea where they were going or what they were doing. He hoped they were not about to end up in the bog-like Unforgiving.
“Uh, Stan, what exactly have you got in mind for today?”

“Oh yes, I didn’t say, did I? We are going to the Okomo Villa. Seems there is a problem that Khana needs some help with.” Zach’s eyebrow raised for a tick. It was not usual for the handlers at the Villa to need the help of hunters, for most of them were fairly accomplished ones themselves. At least, Zach knew that the Inarta that ran the whole thing was pretty handy with a shortbow. He also knew they had wolfhounds that were more than capable of taking down most predators that came too close to the precious Okomo.

Long Stan didn’t offer up any further information, and Zach did not ask. The older hunter possibly did not know the specifics, or wanted more information before he could detail any sort of plan.

The pair moved at a fast clip, both of them breaking into a light jog when the Okomo Villa came into view. The fine mist had increased to a drizzle again and neither of them wanted to get too wet before they needed to.

Long Stan gave a single knock on the door of the main cabin, and they stepped inside when a female voice called them from within. Khana had clearly been waiting for them, as it seemed like she had been pacing the room before Stan had knocked.
“Ah good, you’re here.”

Zach swept his gaze quickly over the room, and it lingered on the form of a large Ouarni Wolfhound curled up on the floor. The animal had a bandage wrapped round one of its legs, a possible clue as to why the two hunters were needed. The Inarta saw him looking.

“Zapter managed to injure himself leaping the fence.” She shook her head. “Honestly, the amount of times he’s done it before with no problems and he hurts himself now.” Zach flicked his gaze up to meet her eyes.
“And now is significant because…?”

“Yes, the reason you’re here. A wolf has been terrorising the Okomo. Zapter, obviously is injured and it’s already killed one of our other dogs.” Zach grimaced at her words. “We’ve laid traps for it but the darn beast is too smart. I haven’t got the time to track and hunt the thing myself at the moment.”

Long Stan nodded at the woman. “Got you. I’m sure we can catch the thing. You know where it’s coming from?”
Khana gave a nod and moved past them to the door. “Let me show you.”

She led the pair of them up past the rest of the buildings and a little further up the treeline. “We’ve seen it come this far down.” Zach looked behind them, noticing how close they were to the last of the wooden huts.

“You say its just the one?” She nodded and set off walking again. Wolves occasionally came down the Sharai Peak to have a go at the Okomo here, but for one to come so close it must be very desperate.

They stopped again, further away now and Khana turned to face them. “This is where we found the dead Okomo.” Long Stan shook his head sadly and looked along the treeline. “We are assuming it’s coming from the trees around here. When it killed the Okomo, we caught it dragging the poor thing away, and it was headed for this general area.”

Stan put a hand on the woman’s arm. “Khana, leave the beast to us. You wont loose any more Okomo if it’s the last thing I do. You hear?” She nodded once. “Thank you, Stan. And you…” She looked expectantly at Zach.
“Oh, its Zach.”

She turned and headed back down to the buildings and Stan crossed his arms, watching the trees. Zach eyed him warily. “What are you thinking?”
“Well, we need to set a trap that doesn’t look like a trap. It will be easiest to lure the beast out of the trees. Hard enough to take the things down in the forest when the weather isn’t trying to drown you.”

“There aren’t exactly many places we can hide out here Stan. Not unless you’re planning on dressing us up as Okomo… Please tell me you aren’t?”
The older hunter guffawed a laugh. “Now that is a picture. No, we need to build a blind.”


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Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
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The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on November 30th, 2021, 10:38 pm

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“A… blind? What’s that?”
“Basically, a blind is a sort of… fort made from saplings and bushes. We hide in it, the wolf, or whatever you are hunting comes along, it doesn’t see you and you get a shot.” Zach nodded, the idea sounded promising.
“Head back to Khana and see if they have any hatchets would you?”

Zach did, trudging back down the slope to the main office. After a few chimes, he was on his way back with a hatchet in each hand. Long Stan was inspecting a small area of skinny juvenile trees that sat next to some larger pines a little way in from the imposing edge of the forest. There was a small amount of low brush around them and Zach pointed one of the hatchets at it.

“Can’t we just hide behind that?”
Stan shook his head. “Too gappy. Plus it’s not at an angle that will likely set us up with a good shot. We don’t want to have to move once we are situated behind it.” He indicated a group of three skinny trees set a little in front of one of the larger ones. “We should set it here, facing up this way.” He made a sweeping motion with his hands to show Zach the direction of sight he was aiming for.

“Okay. So… how do we do it?”
Several chimes later, Zach and Long Stan were just inside of the forest proper, hatchets in hand. They were looking for small saplings with few branches that were growing mostly straight. Zach found one that looked promising, tall enough to get a couple of supports out of it, and so he knelt, bracing one knee on the ground. He chopped away at the sapling at an angle, hitting it a few times so that it fell away from him. From there, he chopped it into two lengths using the one Long Stan had already cut as a measuring guide.

The pair of them repeated this several times over, until Stan was happy that they had enough suitable supports. Thy hauled them back to the chosen spot and laid them out ready to be used.
“Now, we build walls.” Zach raised an eyebrow. “Walls, plural?”
“Yes, like I said, it’s a fort not a screen.”

Long Stan produced several spools of cotton cord from his pockets, handing one to Zach. The Drykas collected his small hunting knife from his pack to cut it with. They started by laying two of the saplings vertically in front of them and placed two horizontally over the top to form a rectangle. Where the saplings crossed they wound several inches of the cotton cord around the joints to hold them together.

Next, they stood the rectangle upright and Stan held onto it while Zach added further saplings to the joints going backwards at a diagonal to help the first wall stand up on its own.

The pair of them repeated the same thing again, building another rectangle for the back wall, but adding an extra vertical support to make a rough door frame on one side. When both walls were standing on their own, they lashed more supports to each wall horizontally this time, joining them together. Eventually they ended up with what appeared to be a very small hut made of saplings.


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Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
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The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on December 1st, 2021, 3:00 pm

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Long Stan sent Zach back into the trees to collect more branches, this time with leaves. He didn’t go too far into the trees, always making sure he could see the older hunter if he tried to look, for realistically neither of them knew exactly the state and how many wolves they were actually dealing with.

To make sure he chose good branches, Zach would pull on them first to check that they were supple. Stan had told him they would be weaving them over the structure they had built, so they needed to be able to bend without snapping. He also made sure not to strip every single branch off of each tree, for he knew that was likely going to be a good way to kill them.

When he had as many branches as he could carry at once, Zach headed back down to Long Stan. The older hunter had tied in a few more saplings to the structure to make it sturdier and give them more to weave through.

The pair worked together to weave the skinny branches into their blind. It took Zach a few chimes to get used to the pattern of weaving, but eventually they begun to get a good cover started. They wove the branches in quite spaced apart to start with, and it was not long before Zach was off back to the trees to gather more.

It took them nearly a whole bell to cover most of the blind with the branches. They would occasionally duck inside of it to make sure they could still see clearly where they needed to. When it was almost complete, Zach headed back to the forest once again to collect pine branches this time.

“They smell pretty strongly, so even if there is a wind not in our favour, the wolf shouldn’t be able to smell us that well. Since we are near to a settlement it is likely used to a lingering human smell anyway.” Stan seemed to know everything about everything. Then again, Zach knew he had been in the game for a while, so it really wasn’t surprising.

Eventually the blind was complete, and the pair surveyed their handiwork for a moment. Mercifully the rain had kept away while they had been working, and Zach hoped it would stay that way for the structure had no roof. Stan snapped a few pieces off of the pine branches and handed some to Zach.

“Put these in your pockets, they’ll help mask your smell more. I need you to go back to the Jugged Hare and get a good piece of fresh meat.” Zach looked at him questioningly. “The wolf might come back for an Okomo tonight, he might not. But I am willing to bet that if he smells blood we will see him.”

The Drykas collected the hatchets and dropped them off at the administration building of the Villa before trudging back into the city proper. It was easy enough to get what Stan requested from the Hare once he explained what they were doing, and before long he was on his way back with a bloody sack swinging from one hand, a smaller cotton back containing warm pies in the other. The hunters made quick work of them before their attentions turned to settling in to wait.


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Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
Posts: 198
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The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on December 1st, 2021, 4:41 pm

Image
The day had drawn over as they had been building, with dusk threatening on the horizon now. It was time to set the bait. Zach handed the bloody sack over to Long Stan, and the older hunter went over to the treeline, stopping at the spot he deemed best for laying the trap.

When it was done, Stan headed down to the huts to let everyone currently working at the Villa know what was happening, dispose of the sack and to refill their waterskins. Zach ducked into the blind and began to clear it out of anything that might make noise if they moved. Leaves, sticks and any foliage left over from weaving in the branches all had to go.

It didn’t take him long and he had clear grass by the time Stan returned. The pair settled themselves down inside the blind, weapons across their laps and waterskins at their feet. They didn’t want to have to fish anything out of bags or pockets lest they make any noises that sounded out of place.

Stan glanced sidelong at Zach after they had been quiet for a few chimes. “You know the first shot is yours, right lad?”
“I figured.” Zach smiled. Stan’s weapon of choice was a spear. Frankly it was terrifying to watch the deadly accuracy with which he wielded it, but he had known since they first started lashing branches together earlier that there was no way he would be able to throw it from inside the blind.

The thought made Zach a little nervous, for he only had one shot to get it right. If he missed, the wolf would be scared away and their trap was unlikely to work a second time. If he hit badly, the animal would suffer needlessly. Thankfully they had set the blind and bait up to give him as clear a shot as possible. They were within a distance where the arrow would have a fast, short journey, and if the wolf went for the bait he should be able to take a solid aim at a relatively stationary target.

The evening crept in, Syna dipping below the horizon lending an inky quality to the sky. They had sat still and quiet for so long that the Drykas almost nodded off a couple of times. By the time they saw motion in the treeline, dusk had fully arrived. It was mercifully still light enough for the pair of hunters to see clearly as a lone wolf stalked into view.

The beast looked fairly large from where they were sitting, and it made a beeline straight for the bait, giving the land around a cursory glance and obviously not seeing anything untoward. As it nosed at the meat, Zach picked up his bow and arrow, raising it to his eye level painfully slowly so as not to make a sound.

The wolf had started to chew at the bait, and Zach took a moment before pulling the bowstring to plan his aim. It was standing at about a forty-five-degree angle to them and he silently thanked whoever was listening, for it gave him the best chance of landing a fatal shot. If he could get the arrow through the neck, the job would be a good one.

Slowly, Zach rested a knee on the ground and half pulled back on the bowstring. He paused, waiting to see if the wolf had heard his movements. The animal didn’t stop tearing at the meat, so he pulled the string taut. He held his breath to steady himself, waited for a few ticks for the beast to raise its head again to afford him the best chance, and loosed the arrow as soon as it did so.

The dusk light meant it was difficult to track the arrow as it sped through the air, but the wolf suddenly dropped to the ground with high pitched whine. Behind the hunters, a few Okomo bleated in worried tones, and the pair of them burst out of the blind as quickly as they could, rushing up to where the wolf lay.

Stan had his spear ready, in case the beast was still breathing, but upon their arrival it was clear to see the animal was dead. Zach let out a relieved breath before taking a moment to look over the canine. It was smaller up close than he had initially thought, a little skinny and its coat was matted.

“It’s a lone wolf.”
The older hunter nodded, crouching to examine the arrow in its neck. “Looks to be. Poor beast must have gotten desperate to come this close to the city after the Okomos. Good shot, by the way.”

Zach gave a nod of thanks. In the end, it had been an easy one, though it was always bittersweet to take out such creatures. Stan handed him the arrow he had retrieved from the body and Zach wiped in on his trouser leg before returning it to his quiver. The pair of them lifted the wolf between them and set off back to the buildings to present it to Khana.
All in all, it had been a solid day’s work. Zach had learned a great deal that would aid him in many hunts to come. Right now though, it was late and he was hungry. Once the wolf had been sorted, the hunters headed back to the Guild, food the only thing on their minds.



wc: 908
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Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
Posts: 198
Words: 193110
Joined roleplay: August 9th, 2018, 12:56 pm
Race: Human, Drykas
Character sheet
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Medals: 1
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The Lone Wolf

Postby Zach Grasswind on March 9th, 2022, 1:49 pm


XP Award!

Name: Zach

XP Award:
  • Socialisation: 2
  • Interrogation: 2
  • Construction: 1
  • Stealth: 1
  • Hunting: 1
  • Weapon: Shortbow: 1

Lores:
  • Long Stan: A mentor to Zach
  • Khana: Head handler at the Okomo Villa
  • Zapter: A Quarni Wolfhound
  • Hunting: A blind will hide you from your prey
  • Hunting: Picking a location for a blind
  • Construction: Building a hunting blind
  • Hunting: Using scented plants to hide your scent
  • Stealth: Clearing the ground in a blind so you don’t make any noise
  • Stealth: Keeping silent while in a hunting blind
  • Hunting: The best angle to take a shot from
  • Hunting: Telling the condition of an animal
User avatar
Zach Grasswind
What’s a tree?
 
Posts: 198
Words: 193110
Joined roleplay: August 9th, 2018, 12:56 pm
Race: Human, Drykas
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 1
Mizahar Grader (1)


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