//------------------------------// // The Scout Takes a Deep Breath // Story: The Pointed Woodsmaster // by The Real Darkness //------------------------------// The moment he stepped a foot out, his front lunged over and his head swiveled slowly around to observe, with zero errors, the exact position of everything. Not because it was how he is, but because to be the best you had to be dedicated. Knowing exactly where everything was without looking spared him several precious seconds and allowed him to use environmental combat better. He walked down halls, head snapping about and saw other horses in cells, asleep as his feet didn't make a single sound in the well repaired boots. He reached a staircase and ascended, keeping his head low. The horse he attacked earlier that was uncomfortably close to sniffing him out was there along with another of the guard horses. "Yeah, you did hit that wound with some alcohol, right?" "Of course I did, who knows what diseases that...thing monkey...whatever it is was carrying." "Hey, the Princess doesn't want us speaking about it like that, have respect." "Sorry, just that it...it's damn good in combat, I've never seen an intelligent creature besides us so good, let alone have that much of a drive to...kill." "So, why didn't you see the healers? That bandage has to suck." "I did! But for some reason they couldn't heal it, said that the creature did something to prevent the wound from being affected by their magic." The blued lava metal of his nation had that kind of magic effect, wounds had to heal naturally, not by magic or alchemical mixtures. Meant that anyone who faced him would die if they ever lost the first battle. Sure, he carried poisons, but those were for the special ones. Assigned targets across wherever to be killed by a due date or however they wanted him to make a spectacle. "That's...concerning. Where do you think it came from?" "Not here, not the Everfree Forest, that's for damn sure. I don't even think it came from our world." "That's impossible!" But quite literally the situation. He breathed in deep before coming out, staying to the shadows as he went around the far side of the room. His eyes were adjusted and enchanted by the mages of his home nation to help him see in the dark, but as such, they made the sun or bright lights a hell on his eyes. The scout and assassin gripped a gladius by its sheathe and made it to the door before standing up tall. "Hey...who's there?" He tuned back to their conversation sharply. "That's him!" The scarred horse shouted. His spear came down, landing on his muzzle, cutting a little into his nose and prevented him fromt moving anywhere without further wounds, "I'm leaving, you're living. That's how this ends." "O-oka-." "That's not a decision you get you agree with, sit back down. This is the simple truth that's happening." He pulled his spear back and leaned it against him while he attached the gladius around his waist. The sidearm should prove more useful than his hunting knife in closer engagements. He mastered the spear, but it still came with disadvantages. Even using both in tandem would make him far deadlier and it would make for a useful tool at times. That fact is why every nation required every solider, knight, rogue, mage, and anyone who fought to have one on them at all times. He slipped out the door, they didn't say anything and no alarm, at least audible was rung. He looked down the large, barren, dark halls while his mind was mentally mapping everything he needed to know. Damn, it felt good to be in the castle of someone he didn't know, a slice of home. He snuck through the halls, patrols easily avoided as he ascended more and more and more, he had a simple plan, but he somehow managed a wrong turn. At least it would have been, but this castle was not making any sense to him, he had made it to the throne room somehow and there sat a ruler, not the princess who came to see him but some horse of great importance. It's mane and tail were flowing similarly, but it had an entire color palette of different blue hues. He noticed spiral stair cases in the rooms however. A gamble to be made. The scout entered the throne room that was well lit, standing tall as if he belonged and made his way to one of them, almost reaching it. "Hey! You're the violent guest! Halt there!" The horse shouted across the throne room and guard ebaring polearms rushed from seemingly nowhere at her sides. Arctus reached down into each of his boots, rubbing a ward firmly once before he sprinted up the stairs. After a minute of ascending, he reached battlements, rain was pouring. A smile from the heavens at last. The expert combatant grabbed a bow before he exited, slinging it over a shoulder so it stretched firm and tight to him, he would make a proper holster later. He gripped a barrel of arrows and heaved it up, still closed. The guards shouted at him and he even caught the gaze of one. With a smile, he stood on the wall of the battlements, the guards pointing halberds at him. He liked drama when he was caught. "You don't have me that easily. A warning," he reached to his pockets and tossed the lock onto the battlements, "I'm not a creature for you to contain. My name is Arctus, shout that name and seek me in the forest." That other important horse and the one who visited his cell made their ways up. He didn't like directly using magic and actively refused to if he could, but this was to send a message. He held the barrel of arrows on his shoulder for a moment. His index finger along with his ring finger traced a rune into the air, appearing as a fiery red. He encircled it to activate the spell. "I have no capacity for mercy, if you refuse to run from me in these woods, you'll die," he fell back and the enchantment of his boots engaged, allowing him to stick to the wall as he sprinted on down. He met the tree line when his incantation in the air finished, the battlement and a good chunk of the wall was blasted apart. He peeked back to see the thrown horses get magically grabbed from the air and saved from plummeting to their deaths. Back at his home, his log roofing laid covered with grass and moss while dirt channels allowed the water to pool into a giant pot above a fire. He already had it lit, letting the water slowly boil. He used plant oil and fibers as candles, letting the wicks lay out while the bottoms soaked and pulled the oils up to it to feed the fire slowly. Survivalist tendencies was his true specialist. He didn't need any civilization to survive and that was a badge of his office that was roughly earned. He sat in a self made chair, tinkering away and made a proper holster from his new bow to sit on his back right next to his spear. A matching crude quiver as well for his hips. He'd need to skin and cure another hide to really update from the wood of these holsters. He had used the extra durable wood of those timberwolves however. He even managed to use that wood to create a chimney that linked to a tree next to his sunk-in-the-ground cabin to help hide its exact location. The scout downed some jerkey, made a week ago, drinking deep from the boiling water stone pot that he did actually use magic to shape. He could have done without it, but the efficiency gave him more time to himself, to contemplate and find his next steps. He decided that they would come for him, but the display he left would at least leave them severely demoralized in their search and the actual confrontation with him. Their magic was far different from his, theirs seemed to come from their horns while his manipulated the magic within nature. His was definitely more devastating and easier to perform, but theirs was far faster to implement. He spent that night mentally reviewing before he left his hovel, the rain having ended. He put his fire out before the sun dawned so nothing could see the smoke. After his short nap, he rose up, drinking again, eating a little bit more and stepped out, knocking aside the moss cover of his entrance and standing up. He pulled his bow out and fully drew it, testing its power. "Impressive...they're working with seventy five pound draws...proper long bows," or maybe it was a fluke. Hunting, right. He left his home, mental map at the ready to guide him. Arctus had been going for quite a wile, having found zero game, but there was a patrol of three horses right there, no wings, no horns. From the way they were whispering, they were actively searching for him, especially when he caught his name. From his perch in a bushy fern, he drew and arrow all the way back and let loose right into the hoof of one. Maybe he had gotten soft, but they did let him get away without killing him. Seemed fair to return the favor. He holstered his bow and climbed the tree swiftly and without any kind of racket, reaching a thick branch and drawing back another arrow. The other two patrol horses were there at the fern he shot from and he landed an arrow into the rear haunch of another. Only one unwounded existed. "Sweet Celestia! Where is he?!" The scout had already leapt to another tree, the horses slowly grouped rear to rear to scan for him. He took out a wood pipe from his calf and spoke through it, projecting his voice elsewhere to give a different location, "I warned you not to come for me." His commotion attracted something...something rather frightening. A large bear with a starry coat began approaching the group. "Captain! We can't beat that with these deep wounds!" "We can't retreat either!" "Go, we're dead, save yourself, Captain!" "Haven't I taught you boys better? Nopony dies alone, all of us come home or none of us do." Comradery, that was something in his official position that Arctus was never afforded. The citizens, merchants, mages, and even the nobles and some royal family treated him like he was the actual king when he made it home however. Only on his insistence did merchant ever allow him to pay for goods. He pulled back two arrows, sending them into the bear's face before he leapt himself and impaled his spear into the back of it, close to the neck. It swung about and the spear and Arctus flew, flipping gracefully before he landed. It closed and swiped a paw, his spear impaled it and he set the rounded edge deep to the earth, keeping it up. The tip clearly poked through on the other side. His new gladius sliced away at the other enclosing paw. The blade suck deep into its stomach next and the scout ripped his spear out of its paw and sliced above the gladius and then at it's eye, it shrieked and raised both paws to slam down, sluggish. Arctus' sharp mind saw it and the clear opening, his leapt from the ground and pieced its throat deep, his force caused it to stumble back, trip and fall onto its rear where the scout landed on its chest. It was choking on the legendary lava metal. He retrieved the gladius on his decent, the arrows too broken to be worth retrieving. He wiped the blade on its fur and rehomed it, swinging his spear about to sling blood off before he held it. "Who..whoa." "Captain, is it?" He looked to the patrol, "you stay out of my woods, you and your nation," he walked to them, the three cowering and he gripped one's fur roughly, pulling him along, "you're going home, come on." "Wh-where did you learn to fight?" "From birth, in my home nation. Aeternia. We all trained up on the volcanoes all day." "Told you he wasn't from this world!" "Quiet, no questions, no talking. The creatures here will sniff us out." They lowered their heads and obeyed. Arctus returned them to the front doors of the castle, just over the bridge that cross the gorge. "Thanks for getting us back." The guards at the door kept their weapons pointed. He noticed a Princess, the one who visited him flying down toward them. "Don't come to the woods again, unless it's a supply trip." He sprinted as fast as he could, determined to outrun the next confrontation.