Ragnar
“It’s time, your shift is done, I got a clue.” MoProbs was impatient, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Relax, you’re scaring the customers.” Ragnar turned to AsLionsMain, “Are you good?”
“Yeah man,” AsLionsMain waved, “Have a good time out there. Hey good luck with your hunt!”
MoProbs ignored the jibe as he lead the way out into the street. “Ok, we’re heading south. HidYKIlla was kicked out of the Red Room an hour ago! I spoke with Chef Bob, He said they kicked her out of town, She was last seen heading south, If we hurry we can catch her.”
They quickly reached the edge of town, and soon the noise and light it was behind them. They found they were walking in the lonely emptyness of the grass plans. Wind moving through the grass turned it into a softly moving sea silver in the light of the moon.
With no trees, the plan was dotted with small dark clumps which Ragnar thought must be bushes, there seemed no place to hide. “Remember,” MoProbs said suddenly, “HidYKIlla can camouflage herself. I know she is close, I can feel it.”
“And do what!?” The voice came from behind them. Ragnar had his axe in hand by the time he had turned around.
“You!” MoProbs shouted as he pointed his sword, “You Tokened the wrong character, now your running has come to the end.”
“You talk big. I’m not running.” HidYKIlla taunted.
“I’m going to take your Token, If you come back, and Token again. I will hunt you down.” MoProbs snarled, flames emerging the from the hilt of his sword. From past experience Ragnar knew that soon the whole blade would be consumed in flame. MoProbs called this his phoenix blade, as the the blade burned it became more powerful, it was also consumed.
HidYKIlla began to draw her wings around her body. “Ohh, fire, not scared. You can’t hunt me, you can’t Token me, you can’t kill me, because you can’t see me.” This was true, by the time she had finished speaking there was only voice.
The flame on MoProbs sword reached the tip of the blade. At that moment the flame flared up, it was no longer a fire it was an inferno. Ragnar, standing a few feet away could feel the heat radiating out. It wasn't just the heat, the blade was now radiating bright, slightly flickering, light. Ragnar heard HidYKIlla hiss, and he could see her. It was her shadow he could see, a black form on the ground. It extended out from two points, here was the body.
MoProbs acted before Ragnar could, with a perfectly executed lunge. The flaming sword struck with a crack as the sword was consumed, a sound that might have been a scream seemed to echo the flash that had resulted in the release of power. Ragnar tried to blink away the spots of light that hovered in his vision, through them he could see MoProbs had ignored the level up statue and was kneeling over the now prostrate body of HidYKIlla, looting it.
Rangar watched as his partner slowly stood up and pulled his Token out of his wallet. Suddenly a light flashed from one of MoProbs’ hands to the other, soon he was surrounded in a small tornado of light. Beams of energy extended out and tore at the body and the level up statue. This only lasted a moment, almost as soon as it had started the vortex of light had retracted back into the hand which held his Token. MoProbs let out a long sigh, looking and fiddling with the face of his Token.
“Wow,” Ragnar said after a moment. “That was intense, what just happened?”
“I did it.” MoProbs said, putting away his Token. “She’s gone, look at the little headstone. I didn’t get the experience for the kill, on the upside I did get her skill, blend. Look here at my sword, It has a notch on it now, that’ s kind of cool. Hey do you want to see my new skill?”
“Of course, do it.”
MoProbs’ outfit had been standard leather armor with a short cape, it was this cap that now changed. In a flicker this cape seemed to disappear, leaving his head floating disembodied a few feet above his legs. Ragnar laughed out loud quickly joined by MoProbs when he looked down at his missing chest. “Whoo!” Ragnar slowly stopped laughing. “So now, mr bounty hunter. Now that we have fulfilled our first bounty should we head back to town to see if we can’t get a new one?”
MoProbs smiled, then looked down the road, south, the direction they had been heading. Ragnar looked too, the land was mostly flat and clear. Far to the west was the faint shadow of mountains, MoProbs turned and looked back towards Norca. “No I think we should keep going, I want to see if this road will take us to those mountains.”
As they walked the light slowly changed and soon they were witness to a stunning display of the world color palette. Ragnar was engrossed in watching the beauty of the sunrise, never had he ever experienced anything like it. Without thinking about he stopped walking and just watched as the black faded to purple, then spreading from the east horizon like fire reds oranges finally yellow. A crescent of bright yellow picked over the world, soon the sun shone sending the last shadows of night back to where it had come.
At night it had felt as though they walked through flat emptiness, a sea of softly waving grass. In the daylight they could see that the land was changing as they got closer to the mountains. The road began to traverse slight changes in elevation, which soon became small hills. As the hills grew in size the ratio of grass to rock changed, The plants around them changed accordingly, becoming more wild, only the most resilient able to maintain a foothold in the rough terrain.
The reached the top of one such hills, both breathing hard from the ascent. Pausing at the crest they saw that the road dipped down into a wide gully where it forked. Ragnar noted with pleasure that one fork head up onto the mountain disappearing around a wrinkle in the slope the other fork continued in the gully running parallel to the mountain as far as they could see. Ragnar started down the into the gully.
“Wait!” MoProbs said as he grabbed Ragnar’s shoulder. “Look, to the right of the fork, what is that? It kind of looks like a door, do you think?” He pointed to a tumble of rocks that leaned against the foot of the mountain.
“I don’t know, I think that is just a trick of the shadow. I mean would there be more here if there was a town, right?”
“You’re right, but those lines look to straight to be natural. I guess we should check it out on our way past. You go first, I’ll watch your back.” MoProb drew his sword as Ragnar started down into the gully.
His first step started a few small stones rattling down the slope. Before the stones had stopped three characters burst from the pile of stones MoProbs had identified as a door. One of the characters spread wings and took to the sky, Ragnar tried to track it but it quickly flew into the glare of the sun forcing him to look away blinking away spots.
“Dudes, chill guys, we’re friendly.” The speaker's face was not yet visible, hidden under the hood of a tie dyed robe.
“If you’re so friendly, what’s with the guy in the sun?” Ragnar was not ready to drop his guard. “Mo, until that guy comes down, keep an eye on the sky. I’ll talk with these guys, ok?”
“Got it.”
“You guys are careful, that’s cool, I dig.” The two characters were closer now, the speaker pulled his hood back revealing the flat head and green grin of a gakko, his tongue came out and licked his eye. He held a twisty wooden staff which he pointed towards the sun. “Up there that’s Evil, don’t worry about Evil. Seriously we are not looking for a fight, Evil just makes sure if you want one, we win it. Look if you put your weapons up, I’ll call Evil down.”
Ragnar focused on the characters in front of him.
LizZard Pisces3318
Level 2 Level 1
Wallet-2AU Wallet-1AU
LizZard’s robe was tie dyed blues, greens, and yellows overlapping in splashes and swirls. Other than the staff he seemed unarmed. His stooped, friendly demeanor was offset by his companion. Pisces3318 had a stocky humanoid body with the head of a catfish, The eyes looking back at Ragnar were wise and seemed a little sad. He was dressed in rusty plate armor and was holding a trident in one hand. Ragnar felt that LizZard was probably being genuine. If they could get this Evil down, and as long as it wasn’t super powerful, Ragnar felt that if it came to a fight they could win. But they needed to get Evil down. “Ok,” he said and he did, he could hear the scrape of MoProbs’ sword going back into its scabbard. “Call your friend down here and let’s talk.”
LizZard licked his eye again then lifted his staff over his head. “Evil, come down dude, These guys are cool.”
There was a swoosh of air as Evil plummeted from the sky, landing lightly with a large dust billow. When the dust cleared Ragnar focused and saw,
EvilAngel
Level 2
Wallet-2AU
Evil was thin and completely without any gender indications. It had no hair, including brows or lashes. Two small horns graced its pink forehead. It held a bow and it’s wings did the work of cloths. Evil regarded the group then seemed to start to extend its wings. There was a poof, the austir angel had been replaced by a grinning cherub.
“Oh creepy, Evil.” LizZard said.
“Goo!” Cooed Evil, who then bent to place one big toe in his mouth and began to suck.
“No Evil, take that out of your...” LizZard stopped when Evil started to slowly spin, making loud sounds of wet enjoyment. “Nevermind.” He turned towards Ragnar and MoProbs, “I don’t see any red but are you a soldier in the Red Army? What brings you guys to Camp Out?”
“No we’re not in the Red Army. What is Camp Out?” MoProbs said.
“If you’re not a Red soldier, come on and I’ll show you.” LizZard’s smile grew even bigger. He led them to the door in the rock pile. They entered a large well lit cave, the wall behind them was full of scattered holes acting as windows. Three tables and chairs cluttered up the middle of the floor, a fourth table was next to a door in the wall in front. Two prints hung on the other walls, opposite from each other. One showed the sun setting over mountain peaks, the other a sunrise over the ocean. “Welcome to Camp Out!” LizZard cried out, after he had shut the door, his arms flung out in a gesture of welcome. He gestured to a table, then took a seat smiling as he waited for Ragnar and MoProbs to join him.
“This is incredible,” Ragnar asked, “How did you find this?”
“It was Fish and me.”
“Fish?” MoProbs interrupted.
“It’s what they call me here.” Pisces3318 spoke for the first time, his voice deep and gravely.
“Ok,” MoProb smiled, “did you guys find it like this?”
“No,” LizZard said, “no, there was nothing here when we first got here. We were looking for a place to hang out that wasn’t Norca. We thought this little valley might be a good spot. I was moving a stone to be a table and I found a scroll, the scroll directed us to draw this space. We did, and then it was here. When more characters came we were able to expand using the same scroll.”
“Did you also pick the decor?” Asked Ragnar gesturing to the paintings.
“No,you see it as we found it. It’s super cool right?”
“It is that.” MoProbs said, “You said more characters came, how many stay here?”
“We are a pretty small, loose community of maybe twenty. The only thing we really have in common is that we were tired of Norca,” LizZard said. “Is that why you came? Because you’re tired of Norca?”
“No, not really,” Ragnar replied.
“We’re bounty hunters,” MoProbs interjected.
“Bounty hunters, you’re not here for any of us are you?” LizZard looked amused.
“No, nothing like that,” Ragnar said. “We were just exploring after completing our last bounty when we found this place.”
“You’re saying that characters will put out bounties on other characters?” LizZard sounded sceptical, “and they’ll pay you for this?”
“Do you know about Tokening?” MoProbs asked.
Pisces3318 looked even sadder, “Yeah, I’m very familiar with that hideous act.”
“Did it happen to you?” Ragnar asked. Pisces3318 just nodded.
“I’m sorry, me too,” MoProbs said sympathetically. “That is what we do. We take bounties on the characters who took Tokens. The characters who place the bounty are usually weak and don’t want to wait till they are strong enough to get their revenge.”
“How much is a bounty?” Pisces3318 asked.
“We are starting at twenty gold. That will probably change as we get a better idea of the market.” MoProb said.
“I’ll pay you thirty to get the bastard who Tokened BigBass13110.”
“Wait Fishy, why?”
“He’s right, LizZard, I don’t want to have anything more to do with that jerk. I definitely don’t want to waste any more time thinking about him. But I will happily pay someone else to do it.” Pisces3318 was already sitting up straighter.
“Fish, can I call you that?” MoProbs spoke up quickly not wanting the sale to slip away, “thanks, we can start now if you would like.”
“Yeah, do I pay you now or what?”
“Once the bounty is complete you pay. Fish do you know anyone else, who hangs out here and is like you?” MoProbs said.
Pisces3318 nodded, “yeah, I was talking with four or five others last night.”
MoProbs turned to LizZard, “Do you think I could stay here for a little bit, maybe set up a little office. Put out a shingle, if you will?”
LizZard seemed to think for a moment then shrugged, “I don’t see why not. If you want I’ll show you the scroll and you can add whatever you’re looking for.”
“That would be great.” MoProbs started to get up.
“Hey! What about me?” Pisces said.
“Fish, The Band of The Golden Hand is on the job, Ragnar will take some import information from you then get started on the investigation.” With that he walked away following LizZard, Pisces3318 turned his sad eyes to Ragnar.
