Urna's legs and lungs burned. She was built for the open plains, and even managed well enough in sparse forest or in the shallow swamps of the region she now called home.
But sheer cliffs?
Best left to the goats, she thought sullenly. The scree beneath her front right paw shifted suddenly, sending a clattering cascade of gravel and flaked stone down the mountainside. Urna froze, keeping her balance only by the grace of a reflexive tentacle snared around a nearby outcropping.
She caught her breath (the air was too thin, up here) and eased herself onto the next solid portion of the ascent. Nearly there. She grit her teeth and lowered her head against the cold, dry wind.
It was Ohr's fault she was up here. Or no, it was for Ohr that she was up here. The signs had shifted, lately. The message was there in every bone she cracked, straining to be heard and heeded. Go forth. The visions in the smoke hinted at something vast and powerful, felt but not seen, like the warmth of a wildebeest's hide on her whiskers.
She dreamt of a hunt like no other.
An Enchanted Beast wandered the lands of Argaia once more, and it fell to Ohr's servants to secure it for their deity.
So here she was, climbing the bluffs, following that inexorable pull up to see the land unspooled beneath her. If there was no sign of the beast here, maybe there was some sign or pattern in the view that would help decide where to focus efforts next.
The ground leveled, and Urna threw herself belly-down on the plateau in gratitude. "Thank the gods," she muttered into the dirt.
The bluffs were a frequented place for the half-lion, half-horse man. Among other things, it was the perfect place to practice and train in flight. Cave systems with entrances big and small acted as precarious opportunities to thread-the-needle, scraggly trees reached up from the cliff side for any light, providing narrow wedges to squeeze through, and of course, small ledges throughout the cliffs were considered landing points for a mid flight stop.
He waved through the sky, causing quite a ruckus with his random bolts of lightning, the random moments when his hair would spike up from the electricity running through his veins. He'd hop, skip, and jump, through the branches, among outcroppings, until finally --
"Oof!" a tree whose branch reached out farther than the rest snags him on his left arm. It's got just enough pull to send him stumbling downwards, landing haphazardly among the rocks and giving himself another couple of bruises and scrapes. Coincidentally, it also brings him quite close to the hyena he'd met before, though he hasn't noticed her yet.
The adrenaline junkie's antics didn't always go as planned, but there was no joy in an activity that didn't give a bit of risk. His sides stung, and so too did his arm, which had a cut long enough to bleed. Licking his wounds, Matthias took that moment to catch his breath -- the air this far up made it more challenging -- and assessed his situation. That's when he noticed her.
What's a flightless hyena doing so far up here? Unless this was another Larkspur situation, he couldn't imagine there being a good reason for her being up here. Unless she was looking for something? Was it something valuable?
He'd rise, assess the severity of his wounds, and tried to hide the limp he now had as he approached her. As well, he'd look around, wondering if he might notice anything interesting on his way to her.
"This is a curious sight," he'd smile, "A hyena on the mountains. How strange."
code by naboo, with alterations.
Perception roll to search for the beast + anything else of value
Deception roll to hide the effects of his injuries
Also, I did not mean for this post to be so long lol, I will try not to do that again!
Character Diceroll 1: Success Diceroll must be above 500 to be successful.
0 was added for Perception.
519 was added for Level 2.
0 was added for A. No Enchantment.
6 was deducted for C. Vagrant Penalty.
Character Diceroll 1: Success Diceroll must be above 500 to be successful.
0 was added for Deception.
519 was added for Level 2.
0 was added for A. No Enchantment.
8 was deducted for C. Vagrant Penalty.
Urna startled into semi-alertness at Matthias' landing, her tentacles tracing lightning-bolt Zs of surprise. It still wasn't quite enough to convince her to get up from the ground. She blinked away the weariness until she could make out the new arrival.
Lion. Winged. Blue. This guy again. He hadn't been looking for a fight last time, but who knew how things might change, away from her home territory. Urna regarded him through one open eye as he approached. The smell of blood tickled the air, but he didn't look injured. Maybe he'd been hunting, then.
He addressed her, sort of. Had he been so obnoxious last time? Flyers, Urna thought to herself. Part of her wished she'd pestered Gabriel to learn how to spell wings of her own, but a deeper, stubborner part was dead-set on proving her way through life without them. She finally stood, though her muscles hitched and complained at the fresh demand.
The lion—Mmmmatthias, was it?—didn't even seem to be looking at her. Wounded pride aside, maybe she could use his help.
Urna twitched an eye-catching ripple through her tendrils, equivalent to clearing her throat. "I'm on a quest for my god," she said, which was fairly true, if less official than it sounded. "Have you heard, or seen, signs of an...unusual beast, lately? Ancient, enchanted? Not your typical animal-with-extras." She flared her tentacles demonstratively before furling them to take a look around for herself.
Character Diceroll 1: Fail Diceroll must be above 500 to be successful.
0 was added for Perception.
483 was added for Level 2.
0 was added for A. No Enchantment.
0 was added for A. No Buff / Penalty.
Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice how much his cuts and bruises hurt. Or she pretended not to. Either way, Matthias kept with the downplay.
A quest for her God? That really piqued his interest. He was already looking around even before she asked, "Hmm. Does a gryphon count?" he stared at a particular ledge not far off ahead of them, beyond their current cliff. From their view, he could just barely make out the entrance of a cave or divot on the cliff side. Squinting real hard, Matthias believes he may have even seen straw or grass that might line a den. Something glinted from the sunlight, which caught his eye more than anything.
"Race ya," he said without even looking at her, wasting no time in taking flight and gliding to the other cliff side.
Urna could reach this spot if she went around. If she got this far up the Bluffs, then this small journey wouldn't be an issue. Matthias, meanwhile, took the time to examine the place for anything of interest. It was for sure some creatures' den, and a big one at that. Long, dead grasses lined the stoney floor, and the remains of some mountain goat -- reduced to bones now -- was hidden deep inside. But most pleasurably was treasure -- gold and gems and all sorts of jewelry. A gryphon after my own heart. He grabbed the gold first, pocketed it in the satchel that rested under one of his wings, then took to stuffing it with the other things as well. Once that was done, he assessed his wounds: a bit of bruising on his front left paw, some scrapes on his chest and chin he could probably pretend was just the blood of a recent meal. He gave them a few quick licks, not sure how much time he has left before Urna got here. And if she does arrive, he'd pretend there was never any treasure to begin with... Except... He took out the least interesting bit of jewelry and placed it randomly within the grasses. Just to be sure.
Urna coughed out an indignant chatter at Matthias' abrupt departure. He couldn't possibly think this was fair. Or necessary. Maybe she'd challenge him to something she was good at and see how he liked it when she ground his face into the dirt. Urna unclenched her jaw and took a breath before her impulses got the better of her.
She didn't hurry. Instead, she stepped to the lip of the bluff and looked back the way she'd come. The path unfurled below her, the rocky spine of stone and forest giving way to the whitewater highlands. More terrain stretched out even farther, its features impossibly miniature until the details were swallowed by the distance. It made the day's journey look deceptively short.
It also wasn't as helpful as she'd hoped. The closest trees obscured the view, and the foot of the bluff was hidden by its own slope. Most of what Urna could see was too far to spot anything informative, unless this beast was the size of a mountain itself.
She eyed the divot Matthias had indicated. It hung out further over the land below—a thought that sent a momentary chill through her forelegs and had her claws digging into the ground—and had none of the obstructions that hampered her current view. The hyena stretched her legs back into reluctant wakefulness and started to pick her way over and around.
Several tense minutes later, she eased herself down the last step to access the ledge, sniffing the air warily. She was...reasonably sure that Matthias hadn't lured her here just to push her off the edge, but the same couldn't be said for whatever the regular inhabitant of this nest was. "Hey," she said, twining her main tentacles back out of the way. "Has anyone told you you're an ass?" A glint of gold sparkled in the grass by his hoof. Urna nodded at it. "Looks like you found something, at least." Absently scooping up the goat's scapula, she turned to take in the view.
Character Diceroll 1: Fail Diceroll must be above 500 to be successful.
0 was added for Perception.
496 was added for Level 2.
0 was added for A. No Enchantment.
0 was added for A. No Buff / Penalty.
"Yes, actually. A big one," he said, grinding from ear to ear at both his response and the recent memory of Reed's joke. He watched Urna for a moment as she examined the nest, intrigued by the tendrils on her mane that seemed to serve as extra appendages, and for a second he had a really lewd thought about pulling on them before he pushed it to the side, "Oh," he said, feigning surprise at having noticed the jewelry by his feet. He hooked a claw through it and lifted it up, "You don't want it?"
code by naboo, with alterations.
Perception roll to see if he finds anything about the beast
Edit: I definitely saved this as a draft lmao but it got posted anyway
Dice roll >:I
