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Remaint -> RE: The Hallows Inn (11/5/2015 23:22:21)
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An elf, wearily leaning on a giant flea blinked. There to her fore laid the gates of a town, with no guardsmen. It was a foreboding sight, or perhaps a mere illusion, conjured by the ever-deceitful forest that is the Darkwald. She unslung her musket and pulled away her tricorn hat, placing them within the blob of bags upon her companion arthropod. If this town was actual, then she did not need to garner leers toward her weapon. Somewhat related, she had encountered friendlier looks when others saw her as a young elf instead of a foreign soldier. The girl took a breath and advanced.
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In the beginning, or middle as it were, Folliwen who came from foggy and dark Harrowshreik was eager to escape the blazing, arid desert to the south, especially as she targeted the Darkwald to the north, a similarly gloomy and dim region to her home territory. That eagerness eroded quickly once the elf set foot upon the forest in which only shadow and deception lay. A few hours worth of her stay had already led to many moments of severe doubt, whether there existed true foe, or a mind’s phantom. Folliwen, ever the reactive Chasseur, loosed shot after shot against rotten bark, corroded stone, swampy soil in her panicked attempts to drive away what demons that may or may not have existed. By the seventh attempt to shoot, her companion steed had headbutted her into the dirt and sat on her, probably out of sheer exasperation added with a hint of concern.
Five-hundred and twenty pounds of armoured arthropod sitting on oneself could not be comfortable, notably so when serrated hooks threatened to puncture skin even through tough coating. The elf squirmed and flailed her limbs uselessly for some time, partly in disbelief of her companion’s betrayal, and partly just to relieve herself of her frustrations. When the giant flea finally walked off her back, Folliwen laid still with closed eyes, trying to find comfort in the harrowing noises in the far background that so tormented her, so remained familiar to her. She found comfort, a twisted sense of comfort equating to dying by guillotine instead of the mouths of many undead.
Some few days past with like results; multiple mis-fires, misidentifications and and the ever unsettling noise that could not be distinguished as natural accompanied the chasseur wherever she went. It went without saying that the nights were worst than day, where the pitch blackness of the fallen sun seemed to have crept into the very bones of Folliwen herself, driving her insomniacal with fear and dread. The unforgiving hours of darkness passed with torturing visions of dead elves, dead loves, dead friends, dead acquaintances, dead enemies alongside miscellaneous wights, revenants and shades. The young elf once climbed a great tree to find rest in, but it was a mistake that will not be forgotten anytime soon; where sleep happens, nightmares pursue. In a fit of black dreaming, an unreasonable thrashing in resting, Folliwen had fell out of the tree and awoke with a dread so unmistakable, so sure of a falling death.
Quite fortunately, the young elf had found landing on something rather soft. Quite misfortunately, Folliwen found herself deeply mired in quicksand. She found her way out with her giant flea's aid, but had to deal with the humiliation of being unclothed briefly, for the risk of hypothermia was very real in the frigid woods that was so telling of home.
Grounded, the chasseur could not and did not sleep well. The living nightmares were so frequent, so vivid that Folliwen resorted to crying herself to slumber, which only led to terrible dreams wherein giant, misshapened pieces of corpses threatened to strangle, break or simply feel her. She eventually did find a remedy, and cursed herself for not utilising it sooner. Folliwen simply slept under her companion arthropod, in a parallel manner, as so its many legs would stand outside to her torso, waist, hips. Strangely, the elf could then rest free of nightly horrors. Mental ones, anyway. She supposes it had to do with her fear of many-legged things overpowering the influence of the Darkwald.
The final evening prior to finding herself at the gates of Blackwater was....actually relieving in some senses. It began in a manner remarkably intrusive, with awakening to the chasseur’s own steed stomping all over her incessantly as all hell, to an occurrence of a harrowing shriek that echoed through her very bones. The shriek was dreadfully familiar. In a spanse of a moment so quick as to leave no time for Folliwen to draw her weapon, a creature malformed, akin to a grotesquely elongated woman burst forth from the brush with arms outstretched. A fearful tear was shed by the chasseur before its wickedly slender fingers grazed the hair of the young elf. She would have met death then and there, had not her giant flea rammed the horror into a mossy tree. Her discipline kicked in at that point, and with a double crack that shattered the uneasy air the creature splurt gruesome blood. The monster’s death throes were a horrible sight, slinging viscous fluid here and loosing soul-chilling screams there, but a second dose of hot lead silenced it.
Folliwen took a breath then. Her heart beated with a sense of familiarity. Of hunting, and succeeding. She came to an epiphany then, of how much of a force multiplier numbers were. This was the very reason she could even have lived in Harrowshreik. Biting her lip in anxious excitement, she planned to find semblance of civilisation.
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To the present hour, the young elf gave wary glances toward the small buildings and panicked people throughout the main street. Folliwen had lingered close to the walls, and oft to travel outside of vision when possible. She held little clue as to the town’s situation, until she caught sight of a small crowd doing battle with...hellhounds? No, the features are vulpine. Hell Fox? Hell-Canid? The last term, made in whimsy, was legitimate to describe what was common in Harrowshreik. It might not quite encompass the beasts Folliwen laid eyes on, but she’ll stick with it.
Great! First day in town and I have a job!
Optimism highest since entering the Darkwald, the elven chasseur brought about her musket from a wrap upon her giant flea. It was rather ironic. Folliwen gave her companion arthropod the name Crazy-Eyes, but it was the arthropod who kept calm throughout their entire journey so far. Short thought past, the elf lined up a shot against Acht and fired. Her particular choice came from a short analysis of the circumstances, wherein a young human seemed to have sought to gain the attention of the specific Hellcanid, to partial avail. The beast then took to re-engage its former target, but Folliwen's mach-speed ball of lead should change that quickly.
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