A Villain In A World Of Heroes

[Dark Ness]

You continue to pet the unicorn with its beautiful mane and black, spiraling horn. Of course, you decide to keep a look out for threats, you wouldn't want anything to hurt you or the unicorn. You stay like that for a while, her nuzzling you and you petting her, but soon enough she starts to leave. At first, this makes you sad, but then she motions for you to follow. You do so happily, of course.

She takes you deeper into the forrest, weaving in and out between the trees. You walk for a few hours before reaching your destination, a small grassy clearing with a small pond in the center. It is filled with crystal clear water, that looks very refreshing and you have the urge to drink. Beside the water, is another unicorn, sleeping. This one, however, is white, and it is very beautiful. It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen except for the black unicorn, which the white unicorn barely compares to. The black unicorn makes a stabbing gesture towards the white unicorn, and you realize it wants you to kill it. It looks at you with pleading eyes, begging you to do so.

[] Kill it.
[] Don't kill it.

OCC: There is an explanation for everything, and you will receive it when it is no longer relevant.

 

[Dark Ness]

You get close to the white unicorn and point your hand towards it. "NOVA GLACIEM!" The ice bolt goes right through the unicorn's skull, killing it instantly. You got to cut it open and eat its heart, but the black unicorn comes up to you and pushes you out of the way. It starts moving its moth towards the unicorns body and you think you see sharp teeth.........

When you come to, the white unicorn's body is gone and the black unicorn is standing in front of you. Barely any time seems to have passed, judging by the sky, and you no longer feel exhausted nor does your arm still sting. In fact, you feel better now then you have felt any time after your father's death. Quickly finishing your self anyalis, you then pay attention to the unicorn in front of you.

She looks even more beautiful then she did before, and she seems strong, healthy, and energized, with a very powerful aura beyond what is was previously. In fact, although you wouldn't have thought of it at the time, she looked sickly before in comparison to what It looks like now. Her muzzle seems to be stained red, she must have been eating strawberries. She inclines her head towards your feet and you see a white horn and a chunk of bloody meat. She then turns to leave and starts trotting in to the forrest, but, before she does, a brief feeling of gratitude passes over you. Now, what to do with your gifts?

[] Eat the meat
[] Don't eat the meat
[] Try to eat the horn
Now, do you continue your trial?

[] Yes
[] No

 

[Dark Ness]

You pick up the meat and scarf it down, unable to resist it's divine flavor. Its better then anything you have eaten before, in fact, if you had any more of it, you might become addicted, that's how good it is. After eating the meat, you feel engerized and faster to boot. Then, still feeling a bit hungry, you try to chomp down hard on the unicorns horn. The result: you shatter your front teeth, you hope those regenerate soon. Not taking the time to lament your lost teeth, you continue to head out into the woods.

Once more, you wander through the forrest, taking care to avoid attetion and not make noise. Although, thinking about it, when did you learn to do that? How do you know the best way to move through the forrest so your footsteps are difficult to hear or how to stay downwind so prey can't smell you? Meh, you shrug it off, it's not that important. Anyways, while you are wandering the sunrise occurs and it's beautiful, you didn't properly appreciate it before(the fact that you no longer have to worry about as many predators may factor into that).

A little while after sunrise, you find a some chainmail armour lying on the ground, likely all that's left of some would be forrest explorer, considering that you don't see anything else around, including a body, and there is dried blood on it. Its shoddy work, several of the butted chainmail rings are mishapen and warp, but it is better then nothing, so you put It on over your cloths.

[]

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Trait Gained:
The Unicorn's Gift: You received a bloody chunk of meat from a black unicorn. After eating it, you felt faster and more energized, whether there are other effects remain to be seen.

Items Gained:
Unicorn Horn
Shoddy Chainmail

 

[Dark Ness]

You keep going, you aren't ready yet. You don't know if you will ever be strong enough to defeat the hero, but, you will not stop, you will NOT give up, you WILL NOT STOP TRYING NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES! So, you continue your wanderings, although, you find little until late morning.

You come across a group of five birds flying low in the sky in a V fromation, but not any birds, they are anzus. Giant birds, almost half your size, and with razor sharp claws and beaks, they would be dangerous even without their magic. They can fire a primitive wind blast from their wings, strong enough to knock most people over. To take advantage of this, they always hunt in groups of at least three with one or more of the anzu pummeling their prey with wind blast to keep it down, while the others swoop in for the kill. You are downwind of them, but they are to the right of you and coming closer, when they pass by, they will undoubtably see you and attack. Judging by their current rate of speed, that will be in about ten seconds, although, you aren't sure if you can hit them from this distance, and any attempts will alert them to your presence early.

[] Write in battle plan.

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Trait Gained:
Dedicated: Certain death, horrific injury, intense pain? Those aren't enough to stop you from pursuing what you TRULY care about, you don't give up and you don't give in.

OOC:

I think that, averaging the pictures out gives us; A dark-haired schoolgirl in a medieval setting with odd eyes. I'm personally leaning towards (Original Pictures #1)'s features plus whatever new traits we gain. Do we actually have red eyes, or are those just for effect in this new set of pictures?

Click to shrink...

I can't answer that until you actually check in a mirror or something to see if anything has changed.

Just realize, going back and checking, that the Dire Wolves were a 10 on the Encounter Type. Assuming that, in general, lower is more dangerous, these guys shouldn't be as hard as them. So maybe regular wolves? Hope not, because besides some more combat experience, nothing much we can get from them.

Click to shrink...

That was on a d70, and, the elk lord was a 37.

 

[Dark Ness]

You go hide, ducking into a nearby bush. Then you throw your pack containing the meat, chainmail, and wolf pelt away from you in an attempt to lure the anzus down to the group,or at least distract them. It works almost perfectly, the anzus, seemly intrigued, swoop down on your pack and prepare to rip it apart, likely for the meat within. Before they can, however, you cast ice bolts at them, catching them off guard.

You aim for the wings, and mange to hit one, although, while it still cripples it, it doesn't hit it dead on. The other anzus panic and attempt to fly away, but you take out the wings of three of them, with only the last one getting off the ground. Unfortunately for it, your next ice bolt goes right through it's head killing it instantly. You then rush towards them with your sword and charge them before they can act. They can't do much without wings anyways, so you weren't really worried. You quickly slice off the heads of the first three, but the last one manged to scratch your leg before you mange to kill it. The wound starts to gush blood, and might have been a problem, but you can regenerate and it quickly closes.

With the battle over, you do what is becoming an increasingly common occurrence these days, and cut open the birds to tear out their hearts. You briefly entertain the idea of cooking one of the hearts, but you dismiss it, it probably wouldn't taste as good anyways. You dig into the hearts, getting the blood all over you. Unlike the previous times, though, you don't feel your physical abilities increase at all, instead, you feel like you can do something with the air itself, and your sense of direction seems sharper. You direct your magic like you do when you are levitating pebbles, and create a gust of wind. It isn't strong enough to actually harm anything, but you did it without a spell!

Looking over yourself, you realize that you have blood from the anzus all over you, as well as dried blood caked on you from your previous kills. You should probably wash it off, especially if you plan to go back to town, although, strangely, you don't feel disgusted like you would a few days ago. Your desire to be clean seems purely intellectual.

[] Continue wandering
[] Go back to town
[] Clean yourself
-[] At the pond you found the unicorn
-[] Search for another place to get clean
[] Write in

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Trait gained:
The Affinity of the Anzu: After eating the hearts of five different anzus, you seem to have an easier time manipulating the air itself, even if you are still terrible. Your sense of direction also seemed to improve.

 

[Dark Ness]

You decide that you should clean yourself off, get rid of the dried (and fresh) blood all over you. So, you start heading the direction of the pond that the black unicorn lead you to earlier. Your newly improved sense of direction definitely helped in this regard, and you set off to reach it. The trip wasn't completely uneventful, however. On your way to the bond, you came across a blood stained leather vest. Just the vest was left, which was definitely strange. You can certainly believe that there are things in this forest that will eat a person, bones, gear, and all, but what would just leave the vest? Regardless, it is still a piece of leather armour, and, unlike chainmail, won't make any noise when you move, so you put it on and continue on your way towards the pond.

Soon enough, you get there and it is just like you remember it, especially the pond, which looks so very refreshing. You go over to it and look at yourself, to try and see if your appearance has changed. As far as you can tell, it hasn't. As you look into the pond, you feel more and more tempted to jump in. But then, you realize what you are feeling isn't natural, and with a burst of rage you turn away, although not before catching a glimpse at your now red eyes.

[] Wander
[] Drink, you are thirsty
[] Jump in, you still need to Get clean.
[] Write in

OCC: I wasn't exactly awake when I wrote this, so there is probably lots of errors.

 

[Ehorin]

ok, I am now writing an Omake (note: assumes taking place a decent bit into the future and that we went with the "use a Good Guy!Hero patsy" plan)

Her occasionally red eyes would have had The Hero somewhat disturbed if not for the fact that her meeting with his group had had them cornered by a flock of Anzu, a rather big one at that, when she came along and literally iced them. The heart eating was similarly disturbing but then she just walked away from them so he figured at least she wasn't cannibalistic. Then of course, she went and proved her worth by snapping him out of his entrancement by The Pond before The Tentacles showed up. That was almost disturbing!

Eventually he was at the edge of The Forest That Tried To Kill Things (yes, the capitalization is pronounced). And she nearly parted ways, only his puppy-dog eyes managed to sway her (I knew my childhood spent begging my parents for sword lessons would come in handy... just not this way!). And then it happened, he had assembled a group of like-minded warriors and mages and she had followed along filling an odd spot where no one else did, that is, she did everything fairly well (OOC: Red Mage Ahoy!). And then they ran into Him, The Hero had no idea why, but his always quiet companion had gone even quieter, her eyes remained Red continuously and her teeth seemed, sharper...

While The Hero's and His group teamed up to destroy the latest Idiot Necromancer Seeking To Drown The World In A Tide Of Undead (yes, the capitalization can be heard) she grew ever more withdrawn. Then, while both were exhausted after slaying the Necromancer she struck. While tending His wounds she slashed his head off with her scalpel (Wind Magic Scary!). Naturally, that immediately shocked everyone, what shocked us all more was her laughter, and her tears.

She had not reacted when her arm was destroyed against the Chimera, she had not reacted when her body was burnt against the Dragon, again and again, she suffered wounds and pain, not once had she reacted with more than a grimace. Yet now, her laughter, there was something, strange, desperate, terrified, joyful, sorrowful, exhilerated, exhausted. It was as if every emotion a human could feel was felt at once.

No one moved, her laughter held them in it's spell of feeling, her tears, the tears no one had seen even as she held her intestines in with one hand and hurled fire and wind with the other, the tears no one had seen as she slew zombiefied children. The tears that were red as blood.

Blood, blood stained her form, her crying, laughing, form. Her disturbing form, her twisted form. Her body bent backward on itself as she laughed amid the arterial spray of one we had called Comrade. And then from her exhausted form three words slipped, breathless, "Father, it's done."

With those words she collapsed, exhausted, she curled up.

Perhaps His comrades would have sought vengeance, but they were in the end mercenaries, The Hero's comrades were friends, they had known she was an orphan, they had known she drove herself harder than any of them drove themselves. Perhaps, now she could rest, perhaps now they could know her even better.

They knew she had a good reason, she had been the one who was first to share what she had with those who had nothing. She had been the one who stayed up all night to watch over the children while they rested. She had been the one to show them the baby animals. Her gentleness outside of combat had only underlined her terrible focus when she fought, using every tool, every trick, every means to stay alive. Yet, she had taken hits meant for more fragile members of the group without hesitation, she had put her life on the line with them time and time again.

Compared to coin-bought loyalty the bonds of blood were not so easily broken.

And so they watched, and waited, as their sleeping mystery girl slept peacefully for the first time in years.

EDIT: So ummm yeah... at least some of that was influenced by the fact that I am currently reading Demonbane... the rest was "Rambo on the Outside, Disney Princess on the Inside"... SV to SV

 

[Dark Ness]

You leave the pond and continue your wanderings. You don't NEED to be clean after all, it is just a spot of normalcy, not that you need normal either, considering the things you have done. Once again, you wander without incident until the early afternoon. You enter a clearing, and, strangely, the entire ground seems covered in vines.

In the center of the clearing, is a huge bulb. It reminds you of a flower before it blooms, except it is filled with beautiful colors on the outside. In fact, they are so pretty, you can't imagine what the inside will be like. You start to walk towards the beautiful flower, you need to go inside it, you need to give yourself to it, you need to feed yourself to it. Wait, for a moment, you hesitate, but then you forget why you are hesitating. Only a few seconds later, though, you trip over one of the vines. In the spilt second before you hit the ground, you realize that something is horribly wrong, and, as soon as you hit the ground, you start pushing yourself up. You stand up, and are about to leave, but then the vines underfoot shoot up and wrap you tightly, so tightly that you can barely move.

You are about half way through the clearing and forty feet from the center. You have enough wiggle room to do just that, wiggle, and little else. You need a way to escape from these vines, unfortunately, their vines coversl he whole clearing. Hopefully, you can get free without a problem.

[]

 

[Dark Ness]

You didn't even attempt to get out of the vines, instead, you immediately attempted to shoot a fireball at the large bulb, figuring that it was controlling the vines. The fireball collided with it, but seemed to do no damage. Panicking, you launched several more fireballs at the bulb, but the first two hit it off-center. The next one actually hit it dead on, but simply did nothing damaging, the fire seeming to be unwilling to burn the plant. Your next shot barely grazes it, while your fifth manages to hit but still does nothing. Your final shot doesn't come close, going completely wild.

This is likely because, as you fired it, the vines were attempting to lift you up and bring you to the bulb. Luckily for you, they completely loosened their grip while doing so and you fell a few inches to freedom. The plants don't seem to have noticed yet, as the vines seem to still be moving towards the bulb as if they were actually still carying something. Unfortunately for you, you are still in a large circle covered with vines exactly like the ones that grabbed you, but, if you are quick, you might be able to get out of the circle around the bulb before the vines notice and grab you again.

[] Flee
-[] To wander some more
-[] Write in
[] Fight
-[] Plan
[] Write in

 

[Dark Ness]

You run out of the vine circle, and, strangely enough, the vines don't pursue you even after the plant thing realizes that it didn't have you, judging by how the vines fell to the ground before they reached the bulb. You take advantage of this opportunity by firing off a dozen shots, but it definitely could have gone better. Only a couple of them hit head on, with most off center, a few that only graze it, and a few that go completely wild and miss the bulb entirely.

The thing doesn't just let this go, though, it sends a couple of vines to rush at you. You barely mange to dodge, but, you take your sword and chop through the vines, which cause them to stop and fall to the ground. You then fire off two more ice bolts at the bulb, the first one barely grazes it. The second one, though, hits it directly and goes straight through. The bulb then seems to wilt, and the vines also seem less vibrant. You seem to have killed it.

[] Examin the bulb
[] Continue wandering
[] Write in