:PART 1: GRAYCLAW!:
In a forest on the southeastern side of Centaria around 8 hours later.
"Come on, get up. We aren't taking a break right now, we just had one 20 minutes ago," I said as I turned to the rest of the group. "But dude," one of them said, "My legs hurt!" "Ok, then we will just leave you behind to deal with whatever lives out here by yourself," I said as I turned around and continued walking in the general direction of our destination. The thought made him leap off the ground surprisingly fast.
"YES SIR, I CAN KEEP GOING!" He yelped as he started following, "WHO'S TIRED, I'M NOT TIRED. LETS GO PEOPLE!" "Yea yea, you don't have to shout James," Tim said. My team mostly consisted of humans, All of whom I found and hired at Calvinia. The team consists of James, our very lazy ranger, pretty sure he just joined because I was paying more than the other requests. Tim, our scout. He was very enthusiastic about joining. . . Until he met James, he still came though so I gotta give him props for that.
Next up is our very quiet rogue, Lisa. She so far has only said yes, ok, or no to us. strangely she doesn't seem to want us to see most of her face. Then me, Isaac. From what I can tell, I'm the only one in this group who is an off-worlder. I was born on earth but raised here on Trinity. And finally, Nessie, She is a witch. . . That is all I know about her, unlike the other three, she came looking for me to join and wouldn't accept the gold I tried to pay her. She has been mostly talking with Tim or me throughout our trip.
We are quite the peculiar bunch, but that may be what we need for this hunt. We are hunting a hell fox said to be a demon hybrid rumored to live in GrayClaw, a forest shrouded in fog and shade due to the dark clouds that always sit floating above it. Records show that it had been like that for almost a thousand years, of course, they never elaborated or said what caused them.
When we first met up Nessie had said It's believed an ancient unknown dragon is to blame for the clouds, she seemed very excited to be coming with us, in fact, we left early last night and out of everyone, she's the only one who didn't sleep at all during our breaks and yet she still is full of energy. "Tim, would you be so kind as to scout ahead for me?" I asked after a bit. "Yes sir!" He responded with joy as he bolted ahead and over a hill. The rest of us kept walking.
We walked for a while longer and then stopped for a short break. "Sir, you never did tell us why you came to Trinity." James said. "Huh, I didn't think that I had too, but if you want I will. I don't remember it all too clearly, but I do remember I left earth on a ship with my parents around 14 years ago,around 4 years ago the ships that took civilians back and forth stopped because a war had broken out. The war is between a Faction of robots and cyborgs, and one of humans and Demi-humans. The human side has most of the actual planet under protection, while the robots have orbit and the space around it controlled. I don't really know much more than that." I said, wrapping up my story.
A few minutes later Tim returned. "SIR!" He yelled at me as he did. "Huat?" I say, startled by his sudden appearance. "T-A TOWN AHEAD IS BEING ATTACKED BY DEMONS!" He says, we all launch up, grabbing our equipment and following him into a small wooded area. As we go straight through, we eventually reach the treeline and freeze. Up ahead, we see a town, it's ablaze and there are humanoid creatures with wings in the sky, throwing fire at it.
"It's Tinferd. . ." James says with a hint of sadness, I recall him saying something about this being his hometown. I can see blasts of ice flying through the air, possibly being royal guards, I grow confused, why are they out here on the coast? My suspicions are confirmed as I see genshuras in the distance with riders fighting the demons. "WATCH OUT!" Lisa yells as she kicks me away, a blast of fire erupting from where I was standing. The demon growls as it lands with a loud thump. I notice its eyes. Something isn't right here, demons don't have white in their eyes, Tim throws a small blast of ice at it, and it confirms that this isn't a demon. It huffs as it shakes the frost off its scales. "It's a dragonoid, use lightning," Nessie says as I unsheath my greatsword, imbuing it with electricity.
The beast's eyes widen as it sees the golden flash of power. I jump at it, swinging my sword, just narrowly missing as it returns to the sky, roaring. I hear Nessie mutter something, suddenly a bolt of lightning comes down from the sky, crackling as it strikes the dragonoid. It screeches as it falls, landing with a loud thud. I walk towards it as it attempts to crawl away. My sword crackles as it breaks through its scales. "Let's go, we have some reptiles to kill," I say as we run toward the burning town.
It doesn't take too long to dispatch the rest of the dragonoids, and putting out the fires takes even less time. When the royal guards realized that the "Demons" they were fighting were dragonoids, they quickly switched to using whatever lightning magic they had. I came to wonder how Lisa managed to notice the one that attacked us. These dragonoids flew silently. I notice Nessie looking at me and then at Lisa who is crouched over a dead dragonoid. She's removing scales from its back. Upon closer inspection, I realize those are the largest, and would probably sell for a lot of money, if she wanted to sell them that is. I sheath my sword as the last Dragonoid thuds to the ground. The village is quite damaged but it should be fixed in a month or so.
I see one of the royal guards turn towards us. Everyone turns toward him as his thudding steps approach. His armor is black with gold edges, it rattles loudly as he comes over. I notice most of the guards here are wearing that set of armor, but the six guards wearing full black armor stick out like a sore thumb. He is much bigger than me. I don't normally like getting involved with giants, but that's something I'm gonna have to deal with if my plans go the way I want them. "Humans, I'd like to thank you personally. I'm the leader of this battalion, as you might have already noticed, we're royal knights." He says as he crouches down on one knee.
He looks past me "Is your. . . friend ok?" He says. I turn to Lisa who has stopped peeling scales and is staring down at the back of the dragonoid. I walk over to her, and as I do I see her quickly hide her hands. "Their scales have silver in their composition." She says as she stands up. I pick one up, and sure enough, I see a tiny glint of silver.
The guard captain walks over and picks one up as well. "Hmmm, these could come in handy later. BOYS! Gather up the bodies!" He shouts to the rest of the guards nearby. "I am Terac." He says as he turns to me and removes his helmet, revealing his gray skin and short, deep blue hair. His Eyes match his hair color. "Isaac, it was a pleasure," I say, giving a small bow. We head toward the center of town before splitting off from Terac and the rest of the knights. I use some water magic to put out a few stray fires as we walk between some rubble.
"You ever wonder how stuff like this just happens one day, out of the blue? You're asleep in bed one morning, everything is fine, and then suddenly you smell smoke and find your home burning down by some other living being's hands. It's terrifying to think that it could happen at any moment." Lisa says quietly as we continue to walk, causing everyone to look at her. "It's really sad, my dad lived here, I heard one of the giants say something about all the people having been evacuated out towards the coast." James replied.
"I heard some of them talking about chasing a werewolf off the farm at the edge of the-" "Shhhh! You hear that?" I cut off Tim as I started to hear a low rumbling sound as we walked. "Y'all hear that?" I asked. "Hear what?" Nessie asked. "I hear it, what is that?" Lisa asked as we continued walking. I glanced left as we passed an alley in between some minorly damaged buildings and I froze.
"Hey, guys. . . Come here." I said while staring at a pit in the ground. smoke seeped from inside, and Nessie gasped. "What is that?" Tim questioned. "It's where the Dragonoids came from." She replied. I moved closer and noticed it was sealing itself, the dirt and stone seemingly appearing and regenerating. I leaned forward a bit, the pit was barely big enough for a giant to get in, but considering there wasn't any vegetation surrounding it, I guessed it was a bit bigger a few minutes ago.
I jump back, hearing something coming from deep in the pit. "What's wrong?" Tim asked as I unsheathed my sword. "Something is coming, fast!" I replied. Everyone else responded by pulling out their weapons and backing away from the pit. I braced myself as a sudden blast of wind hit me. Something just blasted past me, followed by a second thing, the gusts of air blowing me back into the rest of the group and destroying the walls of the brick building by it. My head shot up as I processed what just happened. Two creatures had just flown as fast as they could out of the tunnel, I didn't even know something could fly in that tight of a space. I looked up to see two dots high in the sky, they were way too far for me to see what they were, and they hovered for a few seconds before flying off Northeast.
They were heading towards our destination. GreyClaw Forest.
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GreatRidge Castle, Centaria.
An hour earlier.
"My lord," the king's advisor said, "Cliff and his group have arrived." he continued. "Good. Bring them in." The king said. The advisor bowed before walking through a large doorway outside the room. He came back a few seconds later with four Giants following him, being dwarfed by the Giants as he was human. The four of them knelt as they stopped in front of the king.
"Cliff, stand," he ordered, followed by the giant at the front standing. "Sire, I deeply apologize for the incident at Tinferd. Things got out of hand quickly and we didn't know he had-" "Magic, yea yea yea, heard it already. A Werewolf that managed to learn magic, which is almost impossible for them. News travels fast Cliff." the king interrupted. "Sire-" "SHUT! U don't speak over me, boy!" He yelled before changing his tone.
"Your foolish actions left one of our strongest knights on the brink of death, not to mention the damn Genshura who got killed immediately. You're lucky you are still a captain. Don't let another one of these foolish mistakes happen again, lest you end up dead." The king said. "You are dismissed." He said, ending the scolding. The rest of the knights stood up and they started to leave, Cliff grumbled as he was about to walk out the door.
"Oh and Cliff," he said right as he was leaving, Cliff froze and turned to look at him. "Get some trained Genshuras instead of taking the ones who have never seen battle." He finished. "Yes, King Felcan." He responded before he disappeared around the corner. "Hmm, how was that, Jeremiah." He asked the human standing by his leg. "I think it was good, my lord." The attendant responded. Felcan stood up and walked to the middle of the room, looking up at the statue of his father embedded in the wall. Next to it was the statue of his grandfather, and next to that his great-grandfather.
"My lord, I have news," Jeremiah said. Felcan turned to him, "Well then, to the war room." They turned And headed for the war room. A war table took up most of the middle of the room, its legs had been cut in half so it sat lower to the ground to around the giants' knees, the king sat on a chair, while Jeremiah stood on a small step. "First, a fire has broken out in Tinferd as of 5 minutes ago, Terac reported it as soon as it started, he also said that demons were attacking, but they said they had it handled." He said.
"Huh, good thing we sent them out there this morning then." The king said. "Next, Secemunt has moved from her location in the lake and is believed to be awake and most likely hunting, I suggest requesting all boats stay near the shores until further notice." The attendant said next. "Send a notice to all towns and make sure everyone going to the lake knows to be cautious." The king responded.
"And finally, the Crest town in the northwest is requesting more food to be delivered to them. An unknown creature came and killed all of their livestock." The attendant said. "Send some animals to them, send a message to bring them inside at night. We can send a hunting party right later, and extra food is not much of a problem but they shouldn't make it a habit." The king finally responded before dismissing him.
The king watched him leave and push the door closed quietly behind him. As the door clicked shut, the king looked down, pulling a small blue feather out from under his boot. He twirled it in his hand for a few seconds before stopping and slamming it onto the table. "I know you're there, so I suggest you reveal yourself!" He said loudly. He looked up as a figure stood up, originally sitting out of sight on the top of a gold dragon head. They walked forward, latching onto the bottom jaw of the head with their feet, sitting upside down for a few seconds before dropping down to the floor, a small flurry of feathers flew into the air as they stood up.
The small harpy gave a bow "Your majesty." She said before standing back up straight and wrapping her wings around herself. She had blue and red feathers across most of her body excluding her legs which were orange and scaled, her wings were made up of larger, stronger feathers. She had short hair and large red eyes. She looked tired. "You look like you just woke up. You're lucky you didn't shed more feathers, and that I saw this one before my advisor did." Felcan said while sitting up a bit. She yawned before saying "Been here since this morning, dozed off while I was waiting for you. Surprised your advisor didn't notice when y'all walked in, jumped out of my skin."
"It was quite risky for you to come here, especially since if anyone even saw a feather, you would have been dead hours ago. "Felcan said. "Risk I was willing to take for Fath. Don't know I'm here, gonna probably kill me himself when I get back." She said in a joking manner, scratching her head. "Why are you here? You're a Harpy, which makes you related to him, and last I checked, Chaos is a god, making him and his kin enemies of my kingdom, including you. Why shouldn't I just strike you down right here." He said, his tone switching to a more serious tone. Her expression returned to its original seriousness, as she said cautiously, "Killing me wouldn't be a good idea, may have magic, Silver, n range contraptions. We have more in numbers, stronger armor, wrath of a god, n speed."
"Those are good points, but. . ." He started, and stood up showing his towering height. ". . . we're giants, your fragile little creatures. Your armor doesn't matter against our heavy weapons. Your speed doesn't matter against our bows, and I've gotten a hold of some. . . Pretty dangerous weapons recently." He continued. He stood around four times the height of the harpy who was three-fourths the height of a human. She took a small step back as a grin formed on the king's face. He reached behind his back, pulling out a glowing weapon. He turned and started walking back and forth between the end of the table and his chair while fiddling with small switches at the bottom of the sword. The blade's glow shifted from a whitish blue to a burning red, and the harpy stuck up one of her wings, trying not to get blinded by the Flash.
"You've seen the mechanized ships out in the ocean. I've made a small alliance with a faction from Earth called "The Soulpire". They have gladly sent me some of their technology for some land, Gold, and some test subjects for experimentation. I was supposed to send a few lifeforms in a week, but I wonder if they would accept a gift a bit early." He said turning back to her. She moved her wing, squinting. The light seemed to only get brighter, she wondered how he wasn't getting blinded. Through the light, she realized he was wearing some black object over his eyes. She stepped back as he stepped toward her and then launched into the air, but felt something grab her leg.
Jeremiah stood outside the room with two knights, waiting patiently. He unlocked the door as a loud thud was heard. The king walked out of the war room, the glowing sword glow lessening as he put it away. "Put it in the dungeon, have them restrained, and get ready to send them with the other prisoners to Calvinia tomorrow morning. Make sure it is known that if any of the three of them have a single mark on their body that wasn't my own doing, someone will be joining them.
Make sure to notify Calvinia to keep them fed well, Mr. Spyne wants them in a healthy condition." He ordered as he sat back down on his throne. The two human knights marched into the room and marched out the unconscious harpy. There was a small mark on the back of her head from where she fell on the door when she passed out, but that was it.
"My lord, might I suggest sending a message to Dr. Spyne so he knows they will be ready early?" Jeremiah asked. "Yes, he won't get them early, but it's best to let him know. When you're finished with that, go get the cooks to work. Have the food finished by tomorrow at noon. Notify all of the Generals, I have something I must discuss with them all, make sure Terac is notified to get back here by tomorrow morning." Felcan replied. Jeremiah bowed before turning and heading to the cook's quarters.
End of chapter 1.