Eternity RPC Board
09-13-2016, 11:57 PM
The scarlet-haired elf was a murderer, in fact. Technically; the cause of the formerly-thrashing-but-now-dead-and-quite-exsanguinated half-man on the dusty floor of the hovel most certainly met his end at the hands of Elke's pursuee just as the incriminating scene might suggest, but the circumstances surrounding this eventual "unfortunate" outcome were wholly an isolated incident so that the first thoughts that crossed her mind as she gazed down upon the cowering child - one stained hand on the rusted door handle and the other still clutching the bloody rag - were not of slaughter of this most helpless trespasser, but of confusion and worry as to why and how someone would be in such an isolated part of Myerleigh.
To explain, one would have to follow Nevina back several days, to the first moment she entered the village.
That day began much like Elke's, with the two wanderers taking the same route into town. Much like today, the sky remained clear and warm, a scorching late autum sun beating down upon anyone outside of shade while it freely rode its charriot through the cloudless heavens; only a slight breeze flowing between the trees with the path to gently pushed Nevina towards her eventual destination.
Unlike Elke, Nevina entered Myerleigh with purpose under the pretenses of an invite of the town's local magician and elder, who apparently heard that she was headed towards the village's general area and sent ahead for the cultist in order to perform a service on behalf of the community; being obligated to perform the service as a part of her cultly duities, Nevina of course accepted the task, on condition that she be provided food, lodging, and a small "donation" as a gesture of thanks for services rendered once the problem had been addressed...as is only fair, of course, for even wandering Samaritans must have a means to acquire necessities from those who cannot pay their debts in goodwill. The townsfolk, eager to be rid of their problem, acquiesced.
Said problem? Certain people in the village had sighted a figure lurking on the abandoned and sparsely populated edges of the settlement, a gangly beast in men's clothing that preyed upon the smallish livestock herds kept on the towns outer limits. Some thought it might be a werewolf, while others believed it a feral vampire of sorts, but all townsfolk agreed that the entity would have to be removed, as its presence disrupted their herds and posed a possible danger to the townspeople; a small group had already tried to confront the creature, but its ferocious attitude kept them from driving it off, as several of them suffered serious claw marks and bites from the encounter.
Nevina spent the next two days investigating. While she never saw the beast herself, she saw several of its clues; enlarged footprints with long nails, claw marks on the edges of wooden posts and building supports, "leavings"...yet no actual sighting of the beast. She did, however, notice a pattern of behavior, that all marks and clues pointed toward the creature making its home on the furthest fringe of the town, at or near the babbling brook that carved its way through one side of what used to be the village's perimeter. Why here, she couldn't possibly know the reason other than the fact that a few of the buildings still provided decent shelter while being far enough from the population as to provide safety and solitude...but such dwellings were all too common on the edges of Myerleigh. Something had to have attracted the beast to these specific dwellings, of all the possible places to live and hide.
Then, while crouching barefoot in the stream on the third morning and watching the little minnowfish nibble at the crevices between her toes, she had an small idea. A hunch. However, she couldn't test that hunch without confronting the creature; if this beast did indeed cause the wounds to a group of men and escape without harm, then it would be quite dangerous for a lone, small elf to do the same.
And so Nevina spent the third day in preparation.
Early on the morning of the fourth day, the same day that Elke would eventually make her way into the settlement, the red-haired elf laid her trap for the beast along the water's edge just as the sun began to turn the black of night into a misty deep purple-grey: being sure to mask her own prints, she faked the prints of a lost goat walking to the creek, and then into the smattering of abandoned huts. With a donated charm made of mud, grass, mohair, goat bladder and goat blood, she left a scent behind her, doing her best to occasionally emulate the distressed wail of an injured lamb before leading the trail into the back rooms of one of the better-looking dusty old hamlets.
And there she waited, occasionally repeating the distressed wail from the corner of the hut that couldn't be spotted from the exterior.
The creature eventually rewarded her patience by turning up at her building a little later, when the sun had nearly poked itself above the line of trees that rounded the sparse former meadow. It scratched at the walls testingly, its distorted face lingered long over the cracks as it took in the smell of its prey, before moving along to the door. Long spindly fingers carefully, gingerly pushed aside the moldy timbers of the half-closed portal, its nostrils flaring as it followed the scent, its ears perking at every wail from the "goat." It turned its head slowly towards the sound in the corner towards its meal, towards a Nevina who waited with the bloody charm dangling in one hand and her flute gripped closely in the other.
Fully inside the room, door pushed to behind it, eyes not yet adjusted to the change in light, realization just started to dawn on its face that the shadowy shape pushed up against the corner of hovel did not match the sound it had been following, when-
~ ~ "Maintenance! I'm here to check for mold!"
Nevina's confusion turned to concern when she realized what this girl, cowering before a woman in a splattered smock and carrying a blood-soaked rag, might be thinking. This stranger crouching in a futile attempt to be small and insignificant and close herself away from one who held the power to end this trespasser in one fell swoop of a fantasied butcher's axe, below the tattered panes of a window that opened upon the grizzly scene of a warped man's dying struggles to free himself from an unseen force as his assailant pounds an iron spike through his living, breathing, beating heart. The death throes of a desperate beast. Oh child, she thought, you shouldn't have been here.
She started to reach out with the hand that wasn't gripping a sopping mess of a cloth. She wanted to apologize, to console, to let this person know she would not come to harm, but she was interrupted by the high-pitched noise from the roof, as a little red squirrel chittered in laughter at the dichotomy of Elke's seemingly dire situation and the nonsensicalness of her statement. To Little Red, perched upon the edge of the mossy roof, the absurdity of the entire scene felt almost surreal, and he had to steady himself several times to keep from falling the many feet to the ground in squirrelly laughter.
Nevina stopped short at the sound, as it grabbed her attention. She knew that beast, and the knowing made the feelings all the stronger, as her remorse and embarrassment swiftly became annoyed anger at what the little beasty had done. "Con-...You-...ugh!" She eventually shouted at the squirrel after initially stumbling over her words, "Gods, Forlag, how many times must I tell you to stop harassing the local girls!"
The little creature continued to chuff giggles to itself as it scampered away to avoid the potential wrath from the exasperated Nevina, crossing the peak of the roof and out of sight. The elf had no intention of moving against him, though; her attentions were back on the young girl cowering below the windowsill. With a sigh, she dropped the rag and crouched to a knee, falling on even level with the girl.
"I'm so sorry you had to see that. What are you doing-...no, no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask that. I'm sorry...I won't hurt you. What's your name? I can't hurt you."
To explain, one would have to follow Nevina back several days, to the first moment she entered the village.
That day began much like Elke's, with the two wanderers taking the same route into town. Much like today, the sky remained clear and warm, a scorching late autum sun beating down upon anyone outside of shade while it freely rode its charriot through the cloudless heavens; only a slight breeze flowing between the trees with the path to gently pushed Nevina towards her eventual destination.
Unlike Elke, Nevina entered Myerleigh with purpose under the pretenses of an invite of the town's local magician and elder, who apparently heard that she was headed towards the village's general area and sent ahead for the cultist in order to perform a service on behalf of the community; being obligated to perform the service as a part of her cultly duities, Nevina of course accepted the task, on condition that she be provided food, lodging, and a small "donation" as a gesture of thanks for services rendered once the problem had been addressed...as is only fair, of course, for even wandering Samaritans must have a means to acquire necessities from those who cannot pay their debts in goodwill. The townsfolk, eager to be rid of their problem, acquiesced.
Said problem? Certain people in the village had sighted a figure lurking on the abandoned and sparsely populated edges of the settlement, a gangly beast in men's clothing that preyed upon the smallish livestock herds kept on the towns outer limits. Some thought it might be a werewolf, while others believed it a feral vampire of sorts, but all townsfolk agreed that the entity would have to be removed, as its presence disrupted their herds and posed a possible danger to the townspeople; a small group had already tried to confront the creature, but its ferocious attitude kept them from driving it off, as several of them suffered serious claw marks and bites from the encounter.
Nevina spent the next two days investigating. While she never saw the beast herself, she saw several of its clues; enlarged footprints with long nails, claw marks on the edges of wooden posts and building supports, "leavings"...yet no actual sighting of the beast. She did, however, notice a pattern of behavior, that all marks and clues pointed toward the creature making its home on the furthest fringe of the town, at or near the babbling brook that carved its way through one side of what used to be the village's perimeter. Why here, she couldn't possibly know the reason other than the fact that a few of the buildings still provided decent shelter while being far enough from the population as to provide safety and solitude...but such dwellings were all too common on the edges of Myerleigh. Something had to have attracted the beast to these specific dwellings, of all the possible places to live and hide.
Then, while crouching barefoot in the stream on the third morning and watching the little minnowfish nibble at the crevices between her toes, she had an small idea. A hunch. However, she couldn't test that hunch without confronting the creature; if this beast did indeed cause the wounds to a group of men and escape without harm, then it would be quite dangerous for a lone, small elf to do the same.
And so Nevina spent the third day in preparation.
Early on the morning of the fourth day, the same day that Elke would eventually make her way into the settlement, the red-haired elf laid her trap for the beast along the water's edge just as the sun began to turn the black of night into a misty deep purple-grey: being sure to mask her own prints, she faked the prints of a lost goat walking to the creek, and then into the smattering of abandoned huts. With a donated charm made of mud, grass, mohair, goat bladder and goat blood, she left a scent behind her, doing her best to occasionally emulate the distressed wail of an injured lamb before leading the trail into the back rooms of one of the better-looking dusty old hamlets.
And there she waited, occasionally repeating the distressed wail from the corner of the hut that couldn't be spotted from the exterior.
The creature eventually rewarded her patience by turning up at her building a little later, when the sun had nearly poked itself above the line of trees that rounded the sparse former meadow. It scratched at the walls testingly, its distorted face lingered long over the cracks as it took in the smell of its prey, before moving along to the door. Long spindly fingers carefully, gingerly pushed aside the moldy timbers of the half-closed portal, its nostrils flaring as it followed the scent, its ears perking at every wail from the "goat." It turned its head slowly towards the sound in the corner towards its meal, towards a Nevina who waited with the bloody charm dangling in one hand and her flute gripped closely in the other.
Fully inside the room, door pushed to behind it, eyes not yet adjusted to the change in light, realization just started to dawn on its face that the shadowy shape pushed up against the corner of hovel did not match the sound it had been following, when-
~ ~ "Maintenance! I'm here to check for mold!"
Nevina's confusion turned to concern when she realized what this girl, cowering before a woman in a splattered smock and carrying a blood-soaked rag, might be thinking. This stranger crouching in a futile attempt to be small and insignificant and close herself away from one who held the power to end this trespasser in one fell swoop of a fantasied butcher's axe, below the tattered panes of a window that opened upon the grizzly scene of a warped man's dying struggles to free himself from an unseen force as his assailant pounds an iron spike through his living, breathing, beating heart. The death throes of a desperate beast. Oh child, she thought, you shouldn't have been here.
She started to reach out with the hand that wasn't gripping a sopping mess of a cloth. She wanted to apologize, to console, to let this person know she would not come to harm, but she was interrupted by the high-pitched noise from the roof, as a little red squirrel chittered in laughter at the dichotomy of Elke's seemingly dire situation and the nonsensicalness of her statement. To Little Red, perched upon the edge of the mossy roof, the absurdity of the entire scene felt almost surreal, and he had to steady himself several times to keep from falling the many feet to the ground in squirrelly laughter.
Nevina stopped short at the sound, as it grabbed her attention. She knew that beast, and the knowing made the feelings all the stronger, as her remorse and embarrassment swiftly became annoyed anger at what the little beasty had done. "Con-...You-...ugh!" She eventually shouted at the squirrel after initially stumbling over her words, "Gods, Forlag, how many times must I tell you to stop harassing the local girls!"
The little creature continued to chuff giggles to itself as it scampered away to avoid the potential wrath from the exasperated Nevina, crossing the peak of the roof and out of sight. The elf had no intention of moving against him, though; her attentions were back on the young girl cowering below the windowsill. With a sigh, she dropped the rag and crouched to a knee, falling on even level with the girl.
"I'm so sorry you had to see that. What are you doing-...no, no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask that. I'm sorry...I won't hurt you. What's your name? I can't hurt you."