It's a Wonderful Unlife }{ (Open)

[deraj]

There was a layer of ice atop the snow here. The sound of it breaking echoed off the hills. So much for walking in stealth, thought Deraj. He stopped and looked about the twilight for any signs of life or movement. Heck, who would be this far out in the dead of winter. He trudged on pulling his embroidered red cloak about him in a vain attempt to stave off freezing to death. As if that mattered anymore. I wonder how much of this is simply from a lack of blood flow.

The last signs of civilization he saw, he passed over week ago. An old couple in a quaint little cottage living out their simple little existence. He wondered how much longer they themselves had to live.

It was near there that he first began to show signs of his transformation. He had hoped to be further away by the time his organs began to shut down. The old man must've found him passed out in the middle of the road and drove him home in his wagon. Deraj never found out how that little old man managed to lift him into said wagon.

He must’ve been there for days. He couldn’t be certain, as he didn’t remember much of his stay. Memories were short and increasingly obscure. He remembered first meeting his benefactors, Ethyl and George, and hearing of how he was found. He knew that this would not end well and made an attempt to leave but as he went to stand up he collapsed again on the floor. His later memories were not so clear. He could recall Ethyl trying to feed him in his delirium and attempting to nurse him back to health. Then he recalled the sounds of weeping. When he finally came to, he was lying on a decorated table with his silver armor polished and found that he was holding his sword to his chest. Crap.

He pieced together what had happened and felt horrible for having put anyone through such an ordeal. He looked about the room and eventually found a quill and some parchment.

“Blessed are those that help those in need.”

He left his silver crown and the note where he had been laid to rest. This doesn't make up for what I allowed to happen but at least with the money from this they will never have to worry for the rest of their days.

He managed to sneak out of the house unnoticed and had not stopped wandering since.

[Yua]

The young creature wriggled about in the grass, tough chameleon like skin having been shedding for the past few days, and she was finally getting the last few bits from her back. The shadows activated her luminescent spots. The dim glow and rattle of her slim tail alerted a few animals nearby a predator was very close. She could easily stalk about in the long grass or trees and go unseen. She felt at the top of the world. She had every since she became an adult.

The Ta’Shion took notice to people, she became somewhat hostile towards them as well. Very irritated by humans, even more by dragons that hunt on her lands. She grew hateful as well, people set up traps in her territory. Trying to capture the mystical ‘harpy’. As soon as she patrolled her boundaries, she caught an armored male crossing her boarders. She bristled a little, hiding in the trees, easily blending in. Yua fallowed him. Keeping in the trees, eyeing him with dim blue eyes, easily able to be passed on by gaps in the leaves.

She wandered closer, than laid down on a thick branch, fan like tail swaying behind her some as she watched patiently fallowing him, making sure he did no damage, if so, he’d have to answer to her sharp claws. Or something much worse, her attitude.

[SnwPtrl]

Vetis sat cross-legged on the icy ground. He had his eyes closed and wings folded close to his black robes. He sat in meditation, attempting to allow the spirits of the earth around him seep through his mind.

He breathed a deep sigh, he had been out here for quite some time. Not that it was really his choice... his geomagnetic powers often required him to do a good deal of meditation far out here, away from civilization. It was fairly simple, you don't pay enough tribute to nature, nature doesn't help you out in return. Vetis used to love doing things such as this. Now, after being in the civilized world and bustling cities for too long, he found his meditation to break often and his mind to stray frequently.

Damn. Vetis thought, this wasn't working. He couldn't focus... his mind was set to the busy city markets and stalls, not the quiet serenity of the nature around him.

Thats when he felt a disturbance in the ice and snow he was connected to. He ripped his mind out of the state of meditation and looked around. He didn't see anything in his immediate vicinity but he could feel the disturbances growing and coming closer. Someone, or something was coming his way.

Vetis quickly jumped to his feet and readied himself to cast, should the approaching disturbance turn out to be some sort of hostile creature.
All the way out here...in the wilderness Vetis thought to himself as he spat at the ground, no way this is friendly...

[deraj]

Deraj trudged on in the snow but could not shake a strange feeling of apprehension. He attempted to dismiss it as one of the many bodily things that were coming and going as such would for a while. The simple fact that it did not go away only strengthened his hypothesis.

He quickly attempted to think of possible situations he could run into out here. It was very unlikely any ‘civilized’ humans or human like creatures would be out here. There was always the wandering mountain troll to deal with. Deraj still had his sword but he couldn’t count on his magic just yet. He could never get any confirmation on how that would change once his body stopped. However, he was relieved that he had good ole’ physics to fall back on.

It was then that Deraj noticed some movement out of the corner of his eye. Reflexively he threw his right arm up but as he did so he felt a gratuitous amount of energy flow out of him. A thick lightning bolt flew from his gauntleted hand and into the trees. The thunderclap roared throughout the forest.

Wonderful. I just gave up any chance of stealth at all. I bet they heard that back at the capitol. So much for meeting whatever that is on friendly terms or simply evading it. Heck, that is what it gets for stalking me. I should have locked myself away in a tomb for a few thousand years until I sorted this out.

[Yua]

Much like a fish being shot at in a barrel of water. The bullet may miss but it’s the shock of it that would stun. Evolution still didn’t do well with her kind, and the noise stunned her body, and much like a fainting goat she ended up on her back in the snow. Numb and disorientated from the noise, tail flopping about in the cold snow.

The cold was dangerous to her, she had a hibernation mode, when her body got very low, her skin secreted a film of slime that would freeze. For now she was safe at least, it would take a few moments to come to entirely, blinking at the sky. Her body a bit jerky she turned onto her side shuddering, wondering… what the hell just happened?

[SnwPtrl]

A vicious thunderclap shook the earth and deafened the ears of the nearby Gria. Vetis clasped his hands around his ears and rapidly blinked his eyes as he recovered from the shock.

His ears were still ringing from the noise as he used his powerful mental senses to find the source of the disturbance. He easily got a lock on the location which was hardly a quarter-mile away from his position.

Vet took off at a sprint, holding his black hood over his head as he ran. He spread out his mind, allowing his senses wash over the area ahead of him as he ran, searching for life forms.

To his surprise, he sensed a single being but one that was in no way large enough to cause a disturbance as loud as before. Frowning underneath his hood, Vetis continued running.

It wasn't long before he began to approach the area. As he rounded the nearby hilltop, he squinted down into the glimmering, snow-white forest to see a humanoid figure standing in the distance...
Vetis frowned once again, this was not what he had sensed before. In fact, even now he was not sensing a life form of this size. Startled, Vetis crouched low at the top of the hill gazing down onto the being in the forest below. He was sure the thing had not spotted him but he was still wary.

[Yua]

Yua bristled her feathers, stumbling about as she gained her sences, her extra hearing practicly leaving her deaf still. The loud ringing in her ears stung and the snow made her even more slugish, shivering some and stopping at the trunk of the tree. looking up it but couldnt take much more of the cold, her body trying to shut down and hibernate through it.

[deraj]

Feeling horrible for the damage he had done he trudged over to where the poor creature had fallen. He hoped it hadn’t merely died from fright if the bolt hadn’t killed it.

As he was nearly halfway to where he estimated the thing had fallen, Deraj thought he heard the subtle crunch of ice behind him. He turned around and gazed the ridge-line. He shook his head. Probably my mind making things up. With silence for so long, it was bound to happen. He trudged on through the snow.

[Yua]

She shivered, itt was getting to cold, her limbs stiffened and she curled up against the tree. To cold... she trembled claws dragging into the trees trunk.

[deraj]

It didn’t take him long to come upon the pitiful sight. He had never seen the creatures like before but he immediately felt compassion for it. It doesn't seem to be built for the snow. He saw it clawing at the tree in desperate hope of escaping the snow. With each slash of its claws, it seemed to be losing precious energy.

Well I can’t very well be sure that my magics will help it but I can at least get it up and off of the snow. I wonder if it talks. He approached it as he shed his cloak and spread it out behind this new being. He spoke with as much compassion and kindness that he figured an undead soulless husk of man could. I hope this is taken well. I don’t fear the pain but I bet those claws could do a number on my face. Giant scars don’t exactly make one approachable.

“Excuse me. It appears I have need to apologize. I'm afraid that it was I who shot at you. My magic seems to be a little sensitive as of late. I meant no offense. It was no intention of mine to attack. Here, please, lay on my cloak. It’s not much but it will at least put a barrier between your flesh and the snow.”

[Yua]

Excuse me.

That was all she'd hear before her feathers bristled, her tail twitched rattling and she hissed. Pupils thin like hairs. Taking on a Threatening look. She was a cornered animal, dangerous at this point. She shivered, but ignored the cold for now, though patches of ice had formed on her skin.

She wouldnt last much long before her body shut down and went into hibernation. Being on the ground in such a state made her fair game. But she was more of a Jungle creature, not a forest. She eyed him threateningly, waiting claws bared and ready to cut if he drew to close.

[Willowsong]

Winter was one of Willowsong's most despised seasons, as the white stuff that fell from the sky would more often than not wet her long cloak made out of fur and then make her an easy target for ice to freeze over and drain her temperature.

Normally, Willowsong spent the majority of the winter as a wolf or a bear, but for her current task, she needed the precise coordination only a human's hand had. It helped a lot that she was female, too, as human women appeared to have much more slender limbs than those of males. She had always wondered why, but as she had never been among a human community, she couldn't ask anyone either. The books she had only showed her on how to employ her magic potential, but never would it elaborate on various species. Sure there was a book that detailed dozens of different species, but that was more of an encyclopedia with brief entries and descriptions for each race.

Initially, Willowsong had attempted to sleep through the winter as a squirrel, but her magic didn't allow her to assume the mindset of such a creature, only the physical form. Thus, her body would always awaken once it got too cold in her cave, or if she hungered. And it was very, very hard to find food in the forest in the winter. More often than not Willowsong would return to her cave, bloodied and wounded from a fight with another surviving animal, but the past days had been rather lucky for her as she had found a frozen swamp with berries that had, by miracle or not, survived the cold temperatures under a thick layer of snow. And now that she sat there, a bag of berries under her reddened knees, she turned the snake in her hands. Among the berries, she had found it, sleeping. But her hunger had also awakened the serpent creature, and now Willowsong feared that she had wounded the poor critter.

The snake appeared to appreciate the warmth Willowsong gave off, but the witch was more concerned with the wound the snake had at the side. The healing magic she possessed was too raw in precision to heal such a small wound, and the snake would reply with a hiss if Willowsong hurt it too much. Fearing a bite, Willowsong would always quickly remove her fingers from the wound and wait until the snake had calmed down. Now that it was slithering around her pale arm, Willowsong almost managed to get a small pebble out of the wound that was probably causing the pain, a roaring thunder echoed through the forest. Willowsong and the snake started, and the snake finally snapped and bit the witch in the left hand. Willowsong gave a cry of pain, before the snake pulled its fangs out and dropped into the snow, slithering off.

Holding her bit arm, Willowsong stumbled back in the snow, feeling a sensation of numbness spread from that hand. Whether it was just a hallucination from her own overreaction, human brains tended to give that off, or an actual side-effect from poison, the witch couldn't tell. What she also knew was that that thunder hadn't been natural. Grabbing her bag of berries with her healthy hand, Willowsong got up, her bare feet bloodied from the ice below her as she cautiously began to walk back the way she came. The swamp's ice was thick, she wasn't in any danger to break through, but it was extremely slippery after all.

When she had reached the shore, the feeling of numbness had spread to her wrist, and she gave her hand a curious look, before continuing to travel through the snow and back towards the cave. Unfortunately, while she had tended to the snake, more snow had fallen to illuminate her path, and such Willowsong had to travel slow as to not stray from the path. She considered turning into another creature, but if she had indeed been poisoned, the venom may bear fatal reactions in another body.

Her heart racing, Willowsong made her way through the white landscape, feeling as her body warmth continued to slip away through her feet. Once she made it back to her cave, she'd be fine. She hoped. But that thunder... there must have been a wizard near-by. She could... feel it.

[SnwPtrl]

Vet crouched low behind the cover of the glistening, snowy hillside as he peered down at the scene taking place below. At the moment, he was baffled as to what to do. The thunderous clap that had occurred earlier would have required something very apt in the art. What he was seeing below was not what he expected from such a powerful being. It appeared to be trying to help the small figure laying on the ground however, that only confused things for Vet
Why would someone cast a spell of such power on purpose and then attempt to remedy the situation it had caused? Things weren't adding up, but that simply increased Vet's curiosity.

Finally, letting his curiosity get the best of him, he decided to approach the situation below, He stood and began walking down the hillside, the icy snow crunching beneath his footsteps.

He walked slowly, allowing those below to take notice of him before he got too close, he would judge their reactions to his appearance and decide what to do from there he told himself.

[deraj]

His apology and offer of help was only met with defensive rage. Deraj was now on edge. So I have just cornered and threatened a wild beast. Wonderful. It hissed at him and he began to slowly back away when the noise of cracking ice startled him. As before, he jerked around and another stray bolt of lightning broke free, luckily missing its target by mere inches.

In frustration Deraj threw his arms heavenward and shouted “Dammit!” only to send a pillar of flame high into the air. As the dark inferno raged above him, Deraj began to sway. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Suddenly the great fire dissipated and the Deraj fell backward into the snow.

A gentle snow began to fall upon his unconscious form.

[Yua]

She jerked to the noise and was laid out in the snow aswell. Tencing some, the colder she got the more ice incased her body. Her breathing slowing and her body going into a Hibernation mode. The ice could easily be broken, and any hungery animal would enjoy the free rare meal.