The time it took for you to arrive to your destination really isn't long. By the time you do get there from the edges of the Blistering Dunes to the Red Valley proper, the moon hasn't even reached the top of the sky yet, and you would be lying if you had said seeing the familar sight of the plains completely surrounded by red rocks to not have evoked a strange feeling of comfort from within you.
The night had truly come by then, and with it, the departure of all heat the sun just kept on sending out back during the day. The visibility isn't really good, even with all the stars helping you out, but you can make do with your excellent pair of ears. Unlike some other Creatures, you are perfectly fine with the dark.
It is your time now and with it, all that you need to start your night perfectly is some water for you to drink. Because my oh my, you are parched. Walking while the sun is still out really does not giving you any favors.
And wouldn't you know it? You found water somewhere nearby! Now, it truly is perfect.
If it wasn't for one tiny little problem waiting directly right next to it.
*Growllll*
That.
Upon perceiving the sound, you can feel your body beginning to tense up in anticipation, and it took some conscious effort from your part to not reflexively growl back in return to it's sender who is staying right beside the big pond of water that you are after. As you know exactly what that sound he is making actually meant.
A warning.
"Back away, fox. If you know exactly what is good for you."
Strong elongated jaws, a body compromised entirely without fur, and a set of pretty long spindly limbs. He seems to be some sort of canine. Roughly the same size as you, if not slightly bigger.
And he doesn't look happy. You thought as you watched him warily. Berating yourself in your mind for completely missing the canine's scent.
He does, however, looks pretty underfed judging by how skinny he was. Must not have a pretty good luck when hunting. Even still, you aren't exactly what you would call a fighter. A fight with him would still be pretty tough were you to let it break out.
If you let it break out. You mentally corrected as you began to slowly tread yourself towards him. Making him act much more aggresively, but also allowing him to see your muzzle much more clearer.
"Easy there. Easy." You said to him with a smile. Stopping where you think you might be just barely out of his range. "I did not come here looking for a fight. I smelled your water there from the distance, and was wondering whether you would like to share?"
At your question, the canine only seems to get angrier.
"And what." He growled again. "Made you think I would give even a single drop to you? I found it first. It belongs to me!"
Your response is to continue acting nonchalant. Even somewhat friendly. "Oh, come on friend. Don't be like that. There's enough water in that pond for the two of us and one more. The night had barely even started. Surely, you wouldn't want to waste all of your energy on me when you still have some hunting to do. Because I assure you, I will have that water, Mister."
"And let you attack me when you get closer? Do you take me for a fool!?"
"Look. You can have your fill of the water first. I would stay here until you leave. Only then would I take my drink." You said to him as you close your eyes with a sigh. Only to immediately snap them wide open after hearing his answer.
"What stopping me from just killing you, and eating your remains then, Fox?"
Oh come on! Back to death threats!?
"Looking like that?" You made a show of giving him a once over before visibly snorting. "No you wouldn't. I am not exactly an easy prey."
"Oh, really?" He threatened. Taking a step closer to you.
"Wanna bet?" You grinned as you set your body low to the ground. Waiting for his next move.
For a few moments, all the canine did was glaring absolute murder at you. Not saying anything nor approaching you any closer. Making you very very antsy until....
"Do not move a muscle." He finally warned you with a snarl.
Perfect! You mentally shouted, but from the outside, all you did was letting out a happy yip.
After that, things move along exactly the way you wanted it to. The canine had his drink first, warily watching you from the beginning to the end for any signs of treachery from your part. Not trusting you in the slightest.
A gesture which you also returned. By doing your very best of watching him without making any single move. Your tail being the only exception. As it quite often does. No matter what you do, it just kept swinging around back and fort from behind you without a care.
You can only hope the friendly smile you wear on your muzzle during the entire process would be enough to mollify him.
In the end, the canine decided to leave without anymore exchange of words. Still putting an eye on you even after walking a few meters away from the pond. He keeps on doing it until he suddenly make a run for it after making a far enough distance from you. Where he then eventually vanish completely from your sight.
You keep your guard up until you are convinced he is gone for good. Once you are sure, you let out a small sigh of relief. Glad for resolving the situation without any bloodshed.
You made your way towards the pond then. Not wanting to wait any longer for your portion of the water, only to scowl slightly after seeing how there is only so little of the water that was left. Far less than what it should have been.
You kind of expected it, but really? Drinking almost a third of his bodyweight in water just to spite you? Really?
Welp. You thought with a grimace. There's nothing that I can do about it now. At least he didn't drink all of it.
Before you could bend down to had your fill however, you managed to caught sight of your muzzle in the pond's reflection, and after seeing it you can't help yourself but to wonder.
That isn't your first encounter with a fellow Creature that went just like this. You had many that is similar. Infact, the canine is far from the worse that you had met. Unlike some others, he at least didn't attack you for even once.
You know why they did what they did. Sometimes, you had done exactly the same as what they did when the situation got tough. In their minds, survival is everything. It is hard to put your trust to any strangers when you had that as your number one priority.
So far, things kept on repeating itself over and over again. There are slight differences in them, but at the core of it they are the same.
And you do not like that. You really did not like how your life seems to be unchanging. You want them to change. You do not want it to be the same. You want to do something different with your life!
It's a little bit strange for you to think so negatively about something which had become your routine like this, but the reason why you did so now is because of the one thing you had only just recently noticed. You had improved.
They weren't very big, and you aren't certain you had managed to caught every single one of the changes that you have so far, but you can however confirm that you did, for some reason, improved in some ways. The most obvious one being your hearing. Infact, if you were to focus yourself, you can still faintly hear the sound of the canine even after so much time had passed.
The most important thing however, is how you are certain you are still very much capable of improving even more. Even though you really didn't know how, but the fact that you could in the first place is what important. As with improvement, come changes.
There are so many possible ways for you to improve you almost couldn't even imagine it. In the future, you can be so good at talking, if you were to found yourself in the similar situation like what you just had with the canine, you could not only convince them to drink together with you, you could also even convince them to be your friends! They would not want to hurt you then.
Or you could be very very sneaky. So sneaky, you could just howl on their faces, and they wouldn't even notice a thing! You can't hurt what you couldn't even find after all.
Or you could even be so strong, you wouldn't even need to pay even a single attention if they were to attack you. You could just ignore them entirely!
All of this is possible for you. As long as you are to keep surviving. Just keep on surviving until you don't even need to.
You can just live.
That is why, in the future, you would be better. You will make sure of it.
And with that happy thought floating merrily from within your mind. You finally had your drink.
What face did you saw in the pond? You see....
[ ] Picture 1
[ ] Picture 2
[ ] Picture 3
[ ] Write-In
-/-/-/-/-
Each turn you will have 1 Major Action, and 3 Minor Actions. You can spend 2 Minor Actions to do a second Major Action.
For now, unless there is an opposing roll, all actions will have the DC of 20/40/80.
Votes will be in the Plan format.
Major Action
[ ] New Ownership: You think this is finally the time for you to settle down somewhere. Truly made a home for yourself. The problem is, most of the good den spots in the Red Valley must have been taken already as someone else's territory. You would need to do something big to make them even consider wanting to part away with it.
-[ ] The White Meadows
-[ ] The Barren Cliffs
-[ ] The Rocky Mountains
-[ ] The Twin Horned Mountain
[ ] Is This Good Enough?: Or, you could, however, go look for a new territory. One that is just for you. The Red Valley is massive. There has to be some good unoccupied spots left for you to build your own den somewhere, right? Right?
-[ ] The White Meadows
-[ ] The Barren Cliffs
-[ ] The Rocky Mountains
-[ ] The Twin Horned Mountain
[ ] Cold Night: Usually, your fur is enough for you to keep your warm up when the sun is down. It just sometimes got very cold during the night. Even to the point where you feel you don't have your fur in the first place. Maybe you can do something in preparation?
[ ] WATER: You can't take it anymore. You are THIRSTYYYYYYYY!! Just where in the world is the water!? Oh, you are sure you would find it eventually if only you were to look for it longer, but you don't wanna! You want water, and you want it now!
[ ] Write-In
Minor Action
[ ] Sightseeing: You had been to every distinguishable location in the Red Valley before, you are sure of it. You're not really seeing anything that looks important while being there though. Let's see if you could found something interesting in some of them this time around.
-[ ] The White Meadows
-[ ] The Barren Cliffs
-[ ] The Rocky Mountains
-[ ] The Twin Horned Mountain
[ ] Hello There!: You are quite lonely. It has been a while ever since you got your last friendly conversation with somebody. Well, it is time for you to remedy that then! All you need to do is to keep bothering someone until they would want to talk with you. Easy.
-[ ] A Random Creature
[ ] Predator & Prey: You didn't need to do this as often as you did before for some reason, but you still remembered clearly just what it was like. To a Creature like you, survival is everything, and you survived by preying on others that is weaker than you. It is sad, but they do taste pretty good.
[ ] Veggies?: On the other paw, you did managed to learn of how to live yourself off by consuming plants. It's a bit hard for you to figure out just which part of them that you could actually eat at first, but eventually you did figure them out. They weren't very filling, but they at least didn't talk quite as much.
[ ] Moving Out: You do not want to stay in this area anymore. It is time for you to go to a new place.
-[ ] The Great River
-[ ] The Howling Canyons
-[ ] The Blistering Dunes
-[ ] The Wild Savanna
[ ] Write-In
-/-/-/-/-
My advice? When you are doing something, commit to it. To a God, every single action that they did reflects just who and what they are.
Also, I am very happy to finish this chapter while we are still within range of the new year. Making it truly feels like a new beginning for the Quest. Happy New Year everyone!
[X] Picture 1
[X] Plan: Investigating the Mountain
-[X] Is This Good Enough?: Or, you could, however, go look for a new territory. One that is just for you. The Red Valley is massive. There has to be some good unoccupied spots left for you to build your own den somewhere, right? Right?
--[X] The Twin Horned Mountain
-[X] Sightseeing:
--[X] The Twin Horned Mountain
-[X] WATER
Fennecs are burrowing animals that dig for insects in the sand. I think we should try to get to somewhere where we can make warren for ourselves, which probably excludes the rockier terrain of a mountain. While it's maybe too late to go against the tide here, I'm gonna try anyways.
[X] Picture 4
[X] Plan: Cold Nights, Warm Sands
-[X] Is This Good Enough?
--[X] The White Meadows
-[X] Cold Night
-[X] Predator & Prey
Picture 4 is also my favorite. I like the nasty trickster energy that it gives off. And the fire. I'm hoping to be able to light ourselves on fire sooner, rather than later, which is why I picked Cold Night. Maybe we can be the first to figure out fire? And incorporate that into our divinity.
-[X] Is This Good Enough?: Or, you could, however, go look for a new territory. One that is just for you. The Red Valley is massive. There has to be some good unoccupied spots left for you to build your own den somewhere, right? Right?
[X] Plan: Investigating the Mountain
-[X] Is This Good Enough?: Or, you could, however, go look for a new territory. One that is just for you. The Red Valley is massive. There has to be some good unoccupied spots left for you to build your own den somewhere, right? Right?
--[X] The Twin Horned Mountain
-[X] Sightseeing:
--[X] The Twin Horned Mountain
-[X] WATER
[X] Picture 4
-/-/-/-/-
Out of all the places in the Scorching Desert that you had visited, the Twin Horned Mountain is definitely among the most memorable one. It is largely due to it's unique looking shape of appearing like a very big pair of horns belonging to some great creature if you were to see it from the distance, but it is also because most of the creatures that lives there is a little bit friendlier to you than most.
The Twin Horned Mountain, despite the name, isn't actually solely made out of those two horn looking mountains. They were just the biggest ones around. There exist many smaller mountains surrounding and separating the two that made it very difficult for any creature to pass through this eastern most area of the Red Valley to whatever it is on the other side. Well, any creature that is incapable of flight that is.
Like any other area in the Red Valley, with the exception of the Barren Cliffs for obvious reasons, the place also isn't as barren as the rest of the Scorched Desert. Plant life is able to grow here, albeit with much painstaking effort. The reason for this is because when rain do occasionally falls, a temporary river would form that would flow from somewhere in between the two horns all the way down to the small lake in the White Meadows. This river is also big enough that all the water in it wouldn't just dry up immediately after the rain goes away. It would instead formed up into multiple small groupings of water holes called a wadi that the surrounding creatures would then use for their survival until the next rain arrives.
Here and there, you could see some small patches of grey grass that were able to eke out a living for themself on these mountains. Along with the occasional lone trees that looks only mere days away from dying. It is the existance of these hardy stubborn plants that made the creatures around here to be much friendlier with you, because with them around they weren't very desperate for food, which is also the main reason why you wanted to move here in the first place for at least a long while.
While there are a lot of different creatures that also exist in these mountains such as the frogs living around the wadis and the rats making a burrow at any small hole that they could find, the area seems to be dominated by two different kind of creatures; the cats and the goats. With the cats ruling using their might while the goats ruling using their numbers. Each of them also seems to have some kind of ruler among them that took one out of the twin mountain horn for themself.
On the western horn. The mountain is ruled by a cat creature that called herself the Leopard. A large feline with some odd looking patterns on her brilliant blue fur. It was said that she is the strongest cat alive in the Red Valley. Where she had apparantly able to beat off every other cat that had challanged her for her rule with an unbelieveable tenacity on her part. Even if she is againts a cat that is a lot bigger than her. Some of the creatures that you had talked with also tells you how she seemed to be following a very weird rule of hunting, even though they couldn't exactly tell you what they are. Curiously, she also seems to be missing an eye. Where it was said in it's place were a nasty looking scars that somehow still smells fresh.
Meanwhile, on the opposite horn in the east, it's ruler seems to be some kind of creature with an equally great singular horn himself, with the one he had on his left being seemingly broken sometimes in the past. He seemed to be some kind of goat with fur as red or even redder than the Red Valley itself. Every creature that you had met seemed to have some kind of unspoken agreement with each other to avoid the red goat whenever possible, (even the other goats), as he apparantly just charges immediately head first towards any creature that he met no matter what the situation, and is strong enough to mow down literally anyone with it in a single go. Hence how he become one of the Twin Horned Mountain's ruler by the sheer virtue of absolutely no creature wanting to stay even remotely close to him.
These are the results of what you can gather by looking around and briefly talking with the few creatures on your way that are willing to talk with you for even a moment. There are many of your questions that hasn't been answered, but for the most part you are happy with how much you had found out about the mountains while also being on the look out for a good spot to make a burrow. Looking back, you had also enjoyed the many friendly conversations that you had managed to make with the local creatures. Three out of a dozen is a lot more than what you had been expecting honestly.
Of course, there is also a few creatures that thought you would make an easy meal just because you are willing to talk at all. Most of them didn't actually do anything the moment you actually bare your teeth, and showing them that yes, they are sharp. Not wanting to risk an injury from a creature that is more than willing to fight back againts them.
You usually just leave them to their own problems at that point on, and avoid any area that they were in as much as you could. There is however, a single persistent cat creature that just doesn't seem to want leaving you alone. You often found her stalking you from a distance using your ears, and she usually backs off immediately the moment you talked or growled in her direction to show her you know she is there. Only to found her coming back again in the next day doing the exact same thing. Making you very annoyed.
One day, you can no longer hear her anywhere even close to you, and thinking she had finally given up, you then decided to finally take a nap under a random tree with a decent coverage on it near a mountain face after days of restless sleep that you had while being constantly on guard. Thinking you can finally have some rest. Only to wake up suddenly to the sight of her mid leap trying to pounce on you. Roaring triumphantly.
"Okay. Enough is enough!" You snarled as you whip your tail to her surprised face. Knocking her harshly to a nearby rock wall close to where you have been resting. Before she could even recover, you are on her already. Biting and clawing at her neck in immense fury of just how annoying this feline jerk is currently being.
Unfortunately, her mass is roughly the same as yours, and while you did manage to get up just in time, you are still pretty drowzy for waking up so suddenly. Giving her just the opportunity that she needs to escape your grasp and ran away as if her life depends on it. Because it was.
Hopefully, this would be the last time you will saw of her. You had managed to draw quite a bit of blood in the brief tussle that you had with her on the ground. With some luck, she will learn from this experience and will try not to have another go at something that is clearly beyond her.
Your rest ruined, you then decided to forgo it entirely and just go look around your surroundings for some water for you to drink. You need it to calm yourself down after what you just had.
Unfortunately, life seems to be in her cruel phase at the moment.
"Why is all the wadis dry already? Is it just my luck or what? All I want is just some water." You whined on top of a particular high ground overlooking a small wide area. The sun still shining uncaringly with unbearable heat to all who is below it including you. With an empty wadi sitting just right behind you with no water whatsoever within it.
It is not fair. I tried to be patient, but she just wouldn't have it. And now when I just want some water to drink for myself, I couldn't even get it? WHY!? You thought to yourself morosely. Unbelieving of just how bad your luck is today. Not being able to find any water even in the place where you are most likely to find them. Add in what had happened just prior to this, you can safely say today is a very miserable day for a Fennec. A very miserable day for you.
"Where in the world is the water!?" You finally yelled to absolutely no one. Feeling all of the frustrations that you are trying to suppress from within you to suddenly spiked and surged up so strongly like a freak flood out of literally nowhere. Completely filling your entire being even for just a moment. And with it you....
What are you doing? You....
[ ] howled to your damn loudest to the sky.
I wonder just what do you all think of the choices. Anyways I am going to close the vote in 6 hours. As this is also your first time, here's an advice, pay attention to the words howled, stomp, and cry. Why do I pick them, what do they mean, and what is their difference? The action is already a success.
Edit: Alright, vote ended. You are going to howl.
Scheduled vote count started by Black.Horus on Jan 3, 2023 at 3:04 AM, finished with 6 posts and 5 votes.
You howled. Straightening your small body up to it's fullest extent, you howled towards the sky at the top of your lungs. Drawing it out for as long as you can. Making sure the sound of your voice is spread to the entirety of the Twin Horned Mountain. Letting all who reside within it knows of your frustration, of how you can possibly be sated, and how you want somebody to take care of it. Right. THIS. INSTANT!
And then, as if it were answering your call, the sky responded.
They come from seemingly everywhere. From the north, the east, the west, and the south. They all come. One after the other, the once clear blue sky far above you is quickly being covered up by fast moving clouds merely moments after your howl. They only occupied a small part of the sky at first, but before you have even realized it, most of the sky had already been blanketed by them. All swirling together rapidly into a gigantic vortex of clouds, forming a shining bright center in the middle that took a shape similar to an eye. Located directly on top of the mountain where you are currently staying on.
After that, everything began to slow down. The wind had suddenly stopped blowing, and with it, the world had seemingly been engulfed by silence. Nothing is making a sound. Not even for a breath. The clouds are the only exception. They are drifting slowly in the sky above, circling the eye againts one another following an unfamiliar pattern. Faint sound of rumble can be heard from within them along with the occasional flickering of bright flashing light. Combined together, the sky above you acts more like a disgruntled half awake creature than whatever it was before.
The eye, however, remained stationary. It has not moved from the spot where it had first appeared at all. Staying exactly in the place where they can easily looked down upon your perch above your small measly rock. Where they can just wait and listen to what you had to say to them first before anything else.
You however, don't really care about any of that. What actually matters to you is how slow they are with all of this nonsense. Just where is the water? Why aren't they bringing it to you yet? Questions along a similar line of thoughts like those is what currently is passing through your mind, and with the narrowing of your eyes, you howled towards the sky for the second time. Demanding it to do whatever it was doing faster. Ordering it to give you exactly what you have wanted from them without anymore delay.
Immediately, the vast ocean of fluffy white clouds far above you becomes ominous and pitch black. The faint sound of rumble from before had now become deafening, and the flicker of light become blinding. Whatever it was that blocked the wind before is now also gone, and in it's place is a fierce gale of wind that wears down on everything around you. Turning the already desolate mountain that you are on to a slightly more broken state than what it was just before.
The cause of all of this is obvious. The sky is angry. They are indignant of your choice of words, irritated by your demand, and is affronted by the order you had given to it. Even though they were the one to answer your call, now they are refusing to give you what you have wanted from them just out of pure spite. Even to the point of them threatening you just to get their intentions clear.
And you will have exactly none of it. That is why, you then took a long and a very deep breath. Ignoring all of the ongoing havoc surrounding you to instead gather all of the air that you can down to deep within your lungs. Containing them all there close to your heart where you can take even just a moment to focus on yourself, empowering them before releasing all of the air you had just collected at once to the uppity haughty sky that dare to refuse you.
FALL NOW!!! You howled.
And fall thus the sky.
The rain, no, the storm that falls did not come slowly. Not in the slightest. It comes with the haste of a frightened little kit that is being scolded by their parent; it comes quickly, without even a moment of delay. At once, a vast amount of water is now being poured down from sky. Completely drenching the Twin Horned Mountain to it's entirety. Soon enough, all of the wadis are filled to the brim. Their overflow forming the raging river that had rarely even exist in these barren landscape. Changing your surroundings extensively with such speed that you had almost couldn't believe was actually even possible.
So, within seconds after your third howl, the Twin Horned Mountain experienced it's day of big rainfall far sooner than anyone had expected. Catching every being within it completely unprepared.
"Yip! Yip, yip! Yip!"
You however, barely took notice of it all happening. Prefering to instead guzzle down on the water that falls straight into your awaiting open muzzle. Yipping over and over again after each gulp as if you are just a young vigorous kit. All the while jumping around excitedly in the middle of a strong gusting wind that while it may have calmed down somewhat, it is still a fierce enough wind that could knock some creature over if they weren't careful. Exactly just like the way you are right now.
You however are just simply relishing the refreshing feeling that you had on your throat for way too much to even consider pretending that you care about what is going on. The taste of water after all that had happened on this day is just way too good. This intense feeling of satisfaction that you are now feeling is just too good. You can't just seem to take enough of it.
This immense sense of fulfillment from deep within you is just too much.
Gained A Miraculous Deed: Storm Howl.
"On one day just like any other, a fennec fell into a very deep state of thirst after a long exhausting day exploring the mountains. The problem is, there is no water for it to drink as far as the fennec can see. So they howled at the sky three times and turns the day into a storm. Where it can then sate it's thirst for as much as it wants. For not even the sky dares to risk the fennec's ire."
You do not know for how long did you stay there on top of the rock that is currently being in danger of being carried away by the newly formed river current that is now surrounding it. Only that it couldn't possibly be for very long time because the light that had just been the eye of the sky had barely even moved from it's position before it had suddenly disappeared amidst the clouds after your third howl of today. In any case, you are much more interested in taking a few more gulps of water for now before pondering on abou-
Whis~?
Flinching at the faint unfamiliar sound amidst the ongoing storm, you immediately turns your head around to the direction where the strange sound had just originated from, wary of potential new threats that may have wanted to use your moment of being distracted just like the cat from earlier. After quickly finding the source of it downhill near the base of the mountain, you can't help yourself but to become momentarily baffled after taking a single look at what, or rather who, had just been making that strange noise that you had never even heard of before.
There's only seems to be two of them down there. They are an odd looking creatures that seems to stand upright on top of their hind legs for some reason. Taking that into an account, the rest of their four limbs seems to be placed weirdly on their side where they can move around much more freely than what you had normally been used to see. Their skin also looks like they have a bark like quality on them somehow, and there are some weird growths on their head that looks like they are far more fitting to exist at a base of a beautiful flower than on a creature like them.
Overall, they are definitely the strangest pair of creature that you have ever seen during your entire life. You mused as you watch them safely on your perch above your precarious rock, before being surprised again after seeing their back unfolds suddenly into a pair of insect like wings that they then used to quickly fly away, rather clumsily you might say, to somewhere deeper into the red goat's territory in the eastern mountain horn.
You considered for a moment to give them a chase, but ultimately decided againts it. If they didn't mess with me then I wouldn't mess with them. You thought as you leaps away from your rock that had finally crumbles before the current it had unfortunately found itself in. Where after taking a few more gulps of water beside the still raging river, you then began to make track towards the few places that you had found during your look around the mountains where you can possible use one of them to make a good long term den for yourself.
There are a few ways that you can use to make your own den. Each of them has their own strengths and weaknessess, but for the most part? You can only choose one of them to make your home with.
In what manner will you make your den?
[ ] You will make your home in the same manner as you had always do, by digging it, only bigger. A large and spacious den beneath one of the smaller mountains surrounding the twin horns could have never do you any wrong.
[ ] Maybe a slight variation would also be nice for your new long term home. A den made underneath the roots of a large old tree that you had found on a mountain between the twin horns does sounds lovely.
[ ] Or, maybe you could try for something new? The local cats seems to be perfectly fine with sleeping on top a pile of big rocks. Just what is it that they found so comfortable with it?
[X] Maybe a slight variation would also be nice for your new long term home. A den made underneath the roots of a large old tree that you had found on a mountain between the twin horns does sounds lovely.