Chapter 1: The Valley
Wandering around in a snowy valley, the wildlife sounds and small birds chirps were surprisingly not enough to camouflage Victor’s presence.
The childish Stryx had just discovered few spots covered in mysterious warm flowers and he was not getting over it. Joyfully chirping and hopping everywhere, he missed crushing one and ended up crashing into a tree. As the collision sound echoed through the landscape, surrounding creatures stopped their activities which plunged the area into silence.
The sudden absence of sounds made Victor slightly embarrassed as he recovered from his dizziness.
- Eulas (91)
A crash echoed through the valley as a large royal gryph stopped in his tracks, footprints in the snow behind him covered over by his sweeping silken tail feathers, occasionally stained with a dark red droplet here and there. He had opted to keep towards the edge of the valley, covered just enough by sparse trees and bare shrubs that he could feel protected from any onlookers from above.
Any normal stryx would have no concerns walking out in the open, but he wasn't exactly here for very...morally correct reasons, so he needed to lay low while he traveled.
As the sudden resounding noise silenced the nearby wildlife, the gryph felt his feathers prickle in defense. Someone else was here.
"Come on, pull it together Mortifer. You've got a job to do. Focus." The gryph closed his eyes and thought inwardly. He took a few more steps forward, but stopped as he caught sight of something rather...stryxlike moving in the distance.
"Oh no. Someone's here." Mortifer weighed his options carefully as he muttered to himself. After going back and forth in indecisiveness, he opted to investigate whoever it was that was this far out into the snow covered valley. Mortifer slowly and methodically made his way closer to the other stryx, watching their every move to gauge his safety.
- 6-ft-Demon (221)
Victor was sitting in the snow trying to recover from the collision… at least the newly found flowers were alright.
crunch
His head turned around and, still seeing in quadruple, four enormous blurry stryxes entered his vision sight. Upon closer attention, all seemed to have walked on a flower… “Four? Why all of them had to walk on one?” thought the stryx dumbfounded. For a good minute, he hesitated between starting a fight for the flowers or keeping his feelings to himself. By that time, reason got a hold of him as four against one would be one fight he'd probably not survive. Victor slowly got up and wiggled back and forth on his feet.
crunch
“Well this ain’t a good omen.”, he thought while looking at the flower he crushed. He lifted his head towards the strangers and noticed that the stryx in front of him was now alone. Trying in vain to look around for the other three, the conclusion was obvious for Victor: “They are invisible! But this doesn’t matter… I could use at least one visible new friend today!”
Victor felt less intimidated by this possible friend and slowly regained his childish demeanour. As he chirped at the mighty gryph in front of him, the steam that got out of his beak made him realize how cold the weather had become. The animals in the surroundings were not going back to their original activities and snow was slowly starting to fall from the darkening sky.
- Eulas (249)
As Mortifer approached the smaller stryx, he began to feel less worried. He could easily take down three of this size at once, nevermind a lone challenger. Especially one who was foolish enough to confront someone they didn't know, out in the middle of nowhere, alone without a trace of anyone nearby to help.
"Hello!" The smaller stryx chirped at Mortifer. It was a corvidae-like call, leading Mortifer to believe this stryx was a corva. That would explain the size. Maybe, just maybe, he could wring some information, or possibly some valuables, out of this little guy.
"What would your name happen to be, my friend?" Mortifer asked in his silky voice, one he had been told many a time was convincing and endearing, a tactic he often used to get close to those he needed things from.
"Victor! What's yours?" The corva asked.
Mortifer wasn't comfortable giving out his actual name to a complete stranger, as this corva should be as well, but clearly they weren't of the same mindset.
"Call me...Onlooker." Mortifer gave out his nickname, one he'd been given for the eye marks on his feathers, as well as his tendency to silently watch a situation unfold before deciding whether to step in or not.
"Well then, it's nice to meet you Onlooker!" Victor chirped back, prancing happily back and forth. Mortifer rolled his eyes while Victor wasn't looking.
"Yes yes, it's nice to meet you as well, Victor. Do you happen to know if anyone often patrols this area, if at all? I've got something I need to do, something best done...out of the public eye. Isolated. Alone." Mortifer held back a chuckle as Victor pondered the question.
- 6-ft-Demon (284)
A gust of cold wind lifted Victor's back feathers, sending chills all over his body. He started jumping up and down to warm himself as the falling snow was getting chunkier and the air colder. The sky darkened very fast and both stryxes saw their eyesight adjust with the reduction of light, widening their pupils and making the gryph look slightly terrifying to Victor. “Bad omen. Bad omen everywhere.” he thought as he heard Onlooker's inquiry for the area patrol schedule. Victor tilted his head and emitted a faint croak, wondering why his new friend wanted this kind of information.
As Onlooker seemed to get slightly impatient, Victor fast debated if he could lie about how unfamiliar he actually was with this land: it was his first time going this far in the North and he knew nearly nothing about its inhabitants. The only information he managed to gather before leaving home was the emplacement of a small village nearby, filled with poor humans and tamed stryxes.
“There has been no patrol since I've been here.”, said Victor without specifying for how long he had actually been in the area
Big clumps of snow mixed with ice dropped on both stryxes heads as Onlooker tried to reply.
- Eulas (207)
Mortifer huffed in surprise as the heavy snow fell from the trees above and onto his body, quickly shaking out his feathers, sending droplets and snowflakes in all directions. Victor covered his face to protect from the incoming projectiles.
"No recent patrol? How far are we from the nearest civilization?" Mortifer knew the answer, but wanted to test the little corva. The nearest village was to the north of the valley, just beyond the forest they found themselves in, but he wanted to see if Victor knew that as well, otherwise it may not be worth his time to stick around.
Victor hummed, pointing his wing northwards. Mortifer smirked, a puff of icy condensation leaving his nostrils. So he wasn't as dumb as he was careless. For now.
Suddenly, Mortifer had an idea. He'd been in need of some currency for a while now, having bargained most of it away recently in order to get some high-value assets for a customer, one who still hadn't payed him back in the slightest, and was actually the reason he was scouting for a desolate are such as this one.
"Say, why don't we head off to that village, maybe you'll meet some new friends. Plus we can potentially beat the incoming storm, I reckon you've taken note of the recent weather change as well." Mortifer glanced upwards at the dark clouds spitting snow upon them, the wind beginning to whisper through the trees' bare branches.
Victor's teeth chattered as he brushed the snow from his back, the white of the snow blending with his mostly white feathers.
"That might be a good idea." The corva practically had to speak up over the suddenly howling wind. Mortifer seemed mostly unbothered.
- 6-ft-Demon (287)
Total: 1339 words
———————————————————————————————————————————————
MORTIFER
LITERATURE: (1339 / 100) * 2 = 26
EVENT [FoF]: +4 = 30
BUDDY BONUS: +4 = 34
FLOCKMATE: +2 = 36
PERSONAL: +3 = 39
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TOTAL AP = 39AP
VICTOR
LITERATURE: (1339 / 100) * 2 = 26
EVENT [FoF]: +4 = 30
BUDDY BONUS: +4 = 34
FLOCKMATE: +2 = 36
PERSONAL: +3 = 39
-----------
TOTAL AP = 39AP
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