A Villain In A World Of Heroes

[Dark Ness]

You go up to the bulb to try and examin it, but, when you get close it twitches. It isn't dead! You shoot an icebolt at it and it stops twitching, it looks like it was close to death anyways. You keep going, and peer inside the bulb. You see bodies, animal corpses, floating in a a red sludge that smells putrid and rotton. Along the sides are seeds, twenty beautiful green seeds about an inch long and half an inch wide. Once you see the seeds, you can't think of anything else. You killed their (mother? father?) and now they are your responsibility. You are their mother now, and they are your children, your job is to protect and plant them. Your only purpose in life is to help your seedlings, to plant and nurture them. You love them all equally, after all. But, where to plant them?

[] Around the clearing, where their parent former caretaker died. It likely has lots of nutrients from the undigested prey and plant remains.
[] Back at the pond, there is lots of water and that pond was so pretty. It would make a good, water rich, home.
[] Scatter them throughout the forrest, that way, they can all have their own area and spread.
-[] Randomly
-[] Specifically? (Write in)
[] Back at town, there is lots of people easy prey there for your kids to eat.
[] FIGHT IT

 

[Alphaleph]

Lone Ranger

You're a hero, a chosen one, one of the people that the world loves the most. Whatever you do, you'll do it well. Wherever you go, the people cheer you on. Whatever you fight, you'll defeat them...eventually...unless it's another hero, then it's just annoying. For more reasons than you feel that it's pointless and they're just being jerks. And frankly, it's all starting to get boring. Maybe it's because you kept doing it solo, but what can you do? You don't and can't get along with the most of the heroes you've met, especially if they're an idiot clumsy enough to burn down a shop by accident! Unfortunately, those you do get along with usually already have a full party. So you're left on your own, hunting for big game, bounties, or monsters that are terrorizing towns.

...

You've taken an easy job this time. You are to hunt down an ancient owlbear that attacked a farm. It's an unusual sight though, an owlbear that size or age usually has its own hunting ground deeper in the forest and away from civilization. Which mean something is agitating the forest creatures. You wonder what though.

An owlbear leaves a fairly distinct track that an experienced hunter can find, an ancient owlbear even more so given their size. Therefore, it's unsurprising for you to find your mark quickly. What surprising is that someone else had found it before you! Even more so when you see that you've been beaten by a mage judging from the ice blocks jutting out from the owlbear and several burnt patches on its fur. You feel that your eyes want to pop out of their sockets when you spot your rival. The mage is not only alone and flinging fire right in front of the beast, but is also a girl that couldn't be older than fifteen!

You watch in fascination as the girl dances frantically to gain some distance from her opponent, launches a spell at it and then dodges the monster's return swipe as it catches up with her. The dance continues for awhile longer until the girl manages to spear one of the owlbear's eyes with an ice shard. Perhaps it was exhaustion or premature celebration, but the girl just stops, leaving her open to the bear's mad swipe. You hear bones break as the girl is thrown aside with enough force to send her crashing into a tree. Ah, too bad for her, she was close to finishing it too. Oh well, you get to stretch your bow at least. Taking a stance, you draw back the string of your bow, aim and let loose a single arrow of magic. The arrow flies just as true as always and the bear finds itself with a hole where its heart used to be, before falling down with a loud crash.

You approaches the corpse, intending to harvest the huge body before returning to town to collect the bounty. You're interrupted by a noise coming from where the girl was thrown. Huh, she survived? She's surprisingly hardy for a little mage. Well, you should help her and then discuss how to share the loot .

"You alright?" you asks, eyes observing her condition as your hand reached for a healing potion to offer. She looks battered, her left arm is bent in the wrong places, as is her leg and she has various...
she just slapped the potion away and mutters something while glaring at you with her red eyes.

"That's kinda rude," you frowns. "I'm trying to help here."

"Didn.. sk for it," she grunts out before pushing herself up.

"Hey, don't move! Your.." Huh, her leg isn't broken. Does she has a regen spell? Seems like it. It's not complete recovery judging by how she limps away though. Away... does she not want her share of the loot?

"Hey, what about your share of the bear?!" you shout at her back. She stops.

"Don't want it..." she spat before leaving. Wow, what got her gout? Does she really take that much offense for that?

...Wait, what if she's the cause of.... Nah, that's just silly. Well, if she refuses the bounty, all the more for you. Time to harvest the body and return to town.

---

Nope, you can't do it. Even if she refuses the loot, it just feel awful for you not to give her her share of it. If she refuses to accept money, then you'll just have to give it in other forms, like food. Although now you're a day behind her, so you'll have to track her to find her in the forest. Oh well, she's just a girl, how hard can it be?

 

[Dark Ness]

You go to gather up the seedlings, your children, from the insides of the bulb. But, as you do so, you realize that something is wrong. You hesitate, stopping yourself as you try and figure out what is wrong. You look at the inside of the bulb, and you truly see it. A horrible sledge of digestive juices and acids (you assume), rotting flesh, blood, and guts, from all different types of creatures. And not just the bulb was fed by this, your children were as well.

Wait, those were NOT your children, they were plants, the bulb thing's children or, more specifically, seedlings. Why did you think so-mind control, those seeds were messing with your head to force you to protect them. You feel a surge of anger, HOW DARE THEY! Even now, you experience an urge to protect the, but you push it aside with your will and temper You cast a fireball, filled with rage and hate. "SPHAERA IGNIFERA!"

The seeds vanish in the flame, it looks like they were not as fire resistant as their parent. At the same time, the smell gets even worse, something you had not anticipated. You stumble back from the bulb, but you didn't need to, the fire quickly goes out without suitable fuel to feed it. You head out of the clearing, you may not have gained any enhancements from this battle, but your will has been tested and improved. Now, where to go from here?

[] Wander
[] Go to town
[] Write in

---

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Trait Gained:
Willful Mind: You have experienced and recognized mind control, and then broke its hold through anger and willpower. This gives you an advantage to doing the same in future, and makes it easier for you to detect external influence on your mind.

 

[Dark Ness]

Always wandering, it seems like you do little else now. It has been less then two days since you entered the forrest, but it seems like it has been so much longer. You doubt that your old self would even recognize your new one, you had changed a lot in such a short amount of time. As you are thinking to yourself and walking through the deep forest, where the trees are thick and crowded together, you are ambushed.

From the trees come what looks like four bundles fur and fire? It is hard to tell, they fall too fast. They fall around you, to be specific, and they scratch you skin, leaving gashes straight down your face, arms, and back, which is horribly painful of course. Although, strangely, you receive no serious burns, they likely because the fire was turned away from you. The things fall to the ground around you, and you realize that they are raccoons, raccoons with their backs on fire, yet they seem unharmed. They start scurrying up the trees, probably to repeat the same tactic as before.

[]

 

[Dark Ness]

You immediately shoot an ice bolt at the raccoon in front of you, and it goes right through it's skull, pinning it to the ground. You then turn to fire at the one on your right, who has started to scamper up a tree. Your first two shots only graze it, leaving ice bolts impaled in the tree, but, when it is close to the upper branches, you mange to hit its midsection, killing it or at least taking it out of the fight.

Unfortunately, your focus on that raccoon distracts from the other, and they fall on you from behind and to the left. You don't mange to dodge and you receive scratchs on the back of your head. You mange to turn and barely hit the left raccoon, but it is only a light gash. You follow it up with an ice bolt, though, and you easily impale it at such a close range. You then turn around and hit the last raccoon with ice bolt, ending the fight. You also notice that the raccoons back's stopped burning as soon as you defeated them.

Taking you spoils, you climb up the tree where you impaled the second raccoon and pull its body off the ice bolt. You then gather the other bodies and cut out their hearts to eat. The hearts are small, but filling, especially since their is four of them, and taste quite spicy. After eating them, you find yourself feeling a little warmer. On a different note, you definetly need a new dress, your current one is in tatters, although, at least you have the vest.

[]

---

---------------------------------------------------​

Trait Gained:
Flame Something: You ate some flaming raccoons and got something from them. What this is, remains to be seen.

 

[Ehorin]

blah blah argument, blah blah opinion, blah blah facts, blah blah history, blah blah voters

So to cheer myself up I wrote a thing!

Omake: Feral

"In this town there is a story, a tale told to two purposes. The firs is to convince of the dangers of Villainy, the second, to warn of those like you." The old man who sat beside you at the bar started. "Once, there was a leather worker and his daughter, once, a Hero vistied and purchased 'fireproof leather' from them. Of course, it was only good against perfectly normal fire, the merchant made it for baker's and forgemasters, against cursed flame, magical flame, it was useless. The Hero's arm burned because he trusted the leather, the Hero lost his arm, his foe lost his life. And so did the Leather worker. His daughter, swearing vengeance, left to wander the nearby Forest, seeking to undergo the Trial of Blood. Some say they have seen a girl, clad in fur and bloody chain, red eyed and fanged, wandering the Forest."

"I'm not here to buy."

"Then why are you here?" The old man asked.

"Monsters in a Forest? Sound familiar? Figured it would be a good way to start."

"Hoh, be very careful then, the last few Heroes to enter never came back."

"My father was a forester and my mother a trapper, I'll be fine."

*******One Week Later*****

A flash, a glint, your only warning before ice slashes in front of your face, your backstep saved your life, again. This has been happening ever since your first day here, ice, fire, bone tipped arrows slashing in on you, sudden pits opening before you. Every attempt at retaliation is blasted off course by sudden gusts.

And this seems to be the last straw, a snarl, a glimpse of red, a spear is in your face as you jump back. Tipped with a unicorn's horn, the spear lashes forward even as fire flashes to the side. Your blade goes up, ctaching the spear below the horn, and getting stuck after biting barely an inch into the thick haft. The girl you were told of, red eyed, fanged, furs and bloody chainmail. Huh, she's oddly short, and whoa. Your sword is turn from your grip by the twisting spear, pulling it back she removes your blade and hisses.

*****POV Change********* One Week Earlier********

A Shining One, the birds chirp to each other, the trees rustle at each other, the small beasts chitter at each other. A Shining One, in your forest? Never, Never, Never! You'll kill it, kill it dead, kill it bloody and red. Kill it and leave it, insult it and hate it.

******One Week Later******

This one is fast, the others died in the first day. Quick and Aware this one is. No matter, you'll kill it anyway. You'll just have to do it with your long horn and small fang. Stabbing forward it gets away. Annyance. Stabbing, it's shiny fang cuts into your long horn. Anger.

*****POV Change*****Another Week Later*****

The Feral Girl has kept up with both the annoyance attacks and daily attacks in person, I think my presence insults her. Still, I have managed to kill a few Fenrics and a Mind Bulb, all of them were rather young so it's not too impressive, I'll need to go deeper if I want something worth bragging about.

Doubtlessly, some would tell me to kill the girl. But her annoyance attacks have less and less killing intent behind them, her personal attacks carry more and more joy. I am pretty sure we are starting to come to an understanding.

*****POV Change*****

This one won't die. And in not dying he begins to wake me up. Me, not The Beast I left to continue the Trial of Blood. As The Beast reaches for more and more intellect over instinct my sleep grows ever lighter. I stir. He is rather young, a Hero. It is odd, when we clash he never tries to kill. Maybe he'll do, perhaps.

****POV Change****** Several Years Later*******

"The Hero left, and with him went the Feral Girl who had been stalking the woods. It was an odd sight, the Hero dragging a young Forest Drake after her as she heckled him to keep up. Sent quite a few people into giggle fits. Where'd they go? No one here knows." the Old Man told his grandson, finishing the "Tale of the Leather Workers Daughter" a story told to warn of the danger of judgement at first sight, and the reward of paying attention.

 

[Dark Ness]

You had fought and used your magic, but you do not actually know much about what you can do. Due to this, you decide to stay where you are and investigate your abilities.

--[X] How much force can we exert with our bolts?

First, you shoot an ice bolt at a thick tree, about four feet wide. The bolt goes halfway through, with only the back tip sticking out. Of course, the area around the bolt is slowly covered in frost.

--[X]Do we lose control of them when we stab something, or when we "let go" of it?

Yes, you can't control it once you fire it, unless you use your telekinesis.

--[X]What activates it's freezing component?
As far as you can tell, touching something.

--[X]Can we make two bolts parallel to each other and place wooden planks perpendicular to the bolts to make a flying raft thingy?

You hold cast two ice bolts, but don't release them. You then take a stick and set it on top. It is very exhausting keeping the ice bolts floating and maintaining them, and you drop them after a minute. You had a vague idea to fly on top, but that would likely cause you to faint the right after you tried it, if you didn't immediately fall.

--[X] Can we grab the bolts without hurting ourselves (This is a valid thing because we have regeneration)?

Next, you try grabbing an ice bolt to see if your own magic can hurt you. The answer is definitely yes, as soon as you touch the bolt, your hand goes so cold it burns and you immediately pull it back.

--[X] Can we make them needle thin?
--[X] Can we make them really thick?

After sticking your hand in your armpit to warm it up, you then try to manipulate the ice bolt and make it thinner and thicker. You can do it, but it takes several seconds, and requires some concentration.

--[X]How much can we make them lift, or does touching something make us lose control over it?

You can still control them, and a stick is about your limit for lifting things, if you want to keep going for more then a second.

--[X] How many can we control at one time?

You can only fire one at a time, but you can hold a maximum of three in reserve (counting the one you are firing) at a time. The longer you go without firing them, the more exhausted you get it. You can hold three four a maximum of three minutes before being forced to drop all of them.

-[X]How's our raw magical power coming along, now that we've eaten multiple magical creatures (I mean things like the wordless telekinesis. How much can we lift)?

You can now lift FIVE pebbles and can control one within your line of sight at up to twenty feet away.

-[X] Have we observed our regeneration pushing things out of wounds?

You haven't had anything stuck in you before.

--[X]Does our regeneration make us hungry when it works?

You have always eaten right before or after being forced to regenerate, so your aren't sure.

-[X] Test advancedsenses/body. Can we hear anything rustling around in the silent woods that we couldn't before?

You don't know, you didn't really pay attention before.

--[X] How much physically stronger are we now? Try picking up rocks and stuff and throwing them as fast as we can to get a sense for the difference.

You find a big log, about two feet thick and five feet long, and pick it up and throw it awkwardly. It doesn't go far, but you would have had trouble even lifting it, before going into the forest.

-[X] Try out air manipulation.
--[X] Try seeing how hard or soft a wind we can create
--[X] Try seeing if we can make sounds with just the blowing of the wind

The hardest wind you can make rustles a tree, but you have to sit down for a while afterwards. The softest wind you can make, doesn't even rustle the grass.

--[X] See if pushing wind through our fireball can make it bigger

You cast a fireball, and push wind through it. This spreads the fire in the direction of the gust, but luckily nothing catches.

--[X] Try using air to push lots of gathered wood chips into a stream of air through our fireball, so that we have a fire attack that burns a lot ofthings at once.

You can only move a single chip through at a time, so this is pretty much useless.

-[X] see if your fire spell is more powerful in any way.

It doesn't seems to be, when you cast it. It seems exactly the same as all the other times.

-[X]Try reaching through the unicorn horn to find our magic, i.e reaching inside the unicorn horn for magical power, like how we reached inside ourselves to find ours.

For your final test, after taking frequent rests between the previous ones, you try and channel your power through the horn. It succeeds, and a beam of light shines out of it. You aren't sure what this beam does, however. When you point it a the trees and ground, and even the sky, nothing happens. Now that your testing is done, what will you do?

[]

 

[Dark Ness]

You wander once more, just walking along the forest. You realize that your waterskin is running a bit low though, and you shoot an ice bolt into a tree, taking care to make sure that the end closest you is pointing downwards, and hold a fireball near it so that it melts. You hold your water skin up to the tree, catching the water running off of the ice bolt. It is difficult doing this with a fireball in your other hand, but you manage.

It soon looks like all this is pointless, though, when you come across a river a couple of hours later. The river is slow moving and an opaque turquoise color. You go over to the river and start to bend over to look at more closely. But, before you can, a ball of water come shooting at you. You dodge it, and it hits the ground instead, causing the dirt to fly up and leaving a crater. You are glad it didn't hit you.

You look back towards the river, and realize that you were being shot at by a fish. Specifically, a green fish with sparkling scales about three feet long. Then, two more fish surface right behind you. You could just run away, of course, and since they are fish, they probably won't be able to follow you if you flee, but they could hit you in the back with one of those high powered water balls.

[] Fight
-[] Plan?
[] Flee
-[] To keep wandering
-[] Write in

OCC: After this fight (or the next update, if you mange to flee), there will be a vote on how long you want to stay.

 

[Dark Ness]

First, you attempt to shoot at the fish nearest to you, but you miss, and the ice bolt hits the water instead. At least it freezes part of the river, which is helpful. The fish seem to be ready to fire their water balls, but you get your next shot off first.

You are insanely lucky, not only does your ice bolt pierce the first fish's head, the bolt goes through it and pierces a second fish as well, killing them both. Unfortunately, the last fish takes this opportunity to fire a waterball at you. You manage to dodge the waterball, but only barely.

You counter attack with one more shot, which pierces through the last fish and instantly kills it. You then wade into the river to grab the bodies of the fish before they float away. As you turn around to head back to the riverbank, however, some of the river water splashes into your mouth. It tastes horrible and you go to spit it out. Unluckily, you accidentally swallowed some of the water, and you start feeling I'll with in a second. You run towards the riverbank and fall on your hands and knees once You reach it. You start puking up blood, chunks of meat, and this weird black liquid.

Once you finish puking, you crawl away and lay down on the ground to recuperate. After a minute, you start feeling goof again, so you start cutting into the fish to find thier hearts. The hearts are not that big compared to other things you have eaten, but they are very delicious. As you eat them, you feel like you have some sort of affinity to the river. You wade back into the river, careful not to get any water into your mouth, and discover that you can form waterballs like the fish you ate. You can do it without a spell! Unfortunately, you can't control the water very well if you aren't shooting it in the shape of a ball, and it is exhausting, like non spell magic, but it is still easier then lifting pebbles or even creating gusts.

One more thing is on your mind though, how long should you stay in the forest? You have certainly gotten stronger, but, at the same time, you are definitely not strong enough to defeat a hero. There is training to consider as well, you aren't likely to find any instructor s out here, although you have already gotten better from all the fights you have been in.

How long do you stay?
[] Head back to town now.
-[] Find a different river to get cleaned up at first
-[] Just use this river
-[] Head back as you are
[] One more day
[]Two more days
[] A week
[] Write in

If you chose to stay, what do you do?
[] Wander
[] Write in

---

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Trait Gained:
Of the River: After eating the hearts of three fish from a poisonous river, you gain the ability to form and shoot high powered balls of water without a spell and gained greater control over water. Whether there are other effects remains to be seen.

 

[Dark Ness]

You go explore the forest once more, leaving the river behind. Unlike most of your other wanderings, however, you run across something fairly quickly, around half of an hour after you set out. It is a large building that seems to appear out of nowhere in front of you.

It is made out of cracked, crumbling gray stone, showing that it is apparently very old. It looks to be about fifty feet wide and twenty feet long, without any windows. It is short and squat, with rough, undecorated walls, without even a hint of faded murals or the like. In front of you is an opening leading inside, which, as far as you can tell, is the only way in. You enter, of course.

The inside is far different then the outside. First, the room you enter is in the shape of a pentagon, and there are paths leading off behind you, which should be impossible. Unlike the outside, the stone in this room looks perfectly new and pristine and has a ceiling in the shape of a dome. The ceiling at it's highest point is about five feet above you, and the room is about fifteen feet wide. There is an engraving on the floor of a pentagon inside of a circle, each point. Inside the pentagram is a star and inside the star is another pentagon and so on, until the shapes become to small for you to make out.

You entered at the flat bottom part of the first pentagon and each of the points on the pentagon lead to a different opening. These are by far the most interesting things in the room, and each opening has an arch that goes down to the floor made up of a different color. Above each opening is an engraved metal plate with a girl on it, and each plate is the same color as the opening below it. The girl on the plates looks strangely like you, with the same body shape and facial structure, except with a different artefact. You are even wearing the same clothes in most of them.

In the first engraving is red, and shows the girl holding a sword and plunging it into the heart of a furry beast. The sword is jagged, and seems to be rippling. The girl has an expression of joy an her face and she seems to be more muscular then you.

The second engraving is blue and shows the girl carrying a spellbook. She is casting spells, but whenever you blink or look away, the spell seems to change. Throwing lighting, causing floods and storms, massive fireballs, shields, and even one summoning cheese, the spells you see are many and varied.

The third engraving is pink and shows the girl wearing a ring. She is conversing with a man, who has an expression of acceptance and joy. Yet, sometimes it seems to be replaced by one of pain, but maybe that's a trick of the light

The fourth engraving is green and shows the girl wearing a dress. She is being sliced to bits by a floating sword, but seems completely fine at the same time. You are not sure how the engraving manages to show this.

The fifth and final painting is black and white instead of a solid color like the rest and you see the girl wearing a bracelet. In front of her is two identical men fighting, but also bound by chains. The chains seem to dig into the men at some areas, but are loose in others.

[] Sword
[] Spellbook
[] Ring
[] Dress
[] Bracelet