Misery

[Revenant]

Burning excitement that was flooding through William made him too eager for combat to snap at Sei for the use of Mystic Protection that the Mystic used on him. William had a general dislike for magic, but as often as it was necessary he had come to accept that it was something he was never going to truly do away with. Having magic used on him was an entirely different matter and one that usually carried vicious, bloody consequences.

William leaped back into melee with the Alpha Demon, heeding Sei's command without even realizing the absurdity of it. He had been 'doing what he did best' before Sei himself pulled William away. He would most likely remember it later when he could well and truly be annoyed by it, but right now William was nothing but cooperative.

A snapping hiss popped next to William's ear as the creature's saw-toothed jaw whipped closed in the space that William had occupied only a fraction of a second before. Unlike the lesser demons, the Alpha was strong and wily, a long lived and powerful specimen of its brood. It twisted around, scrambling its many clawed arms for purchase on its own body as the wiry line of the thing's torso contorted to lope around William while bringing its jaws back into striking distance. William grinned a savage, shark-like grin as he himself moved, twisted, and lashed out with his claws in opposition to the creature's movements.

The strike-counterstrike battle between the two demonic combatants was an utterly beautiful dance, and an utterly deadly one. It quickly became apparent that it would only take a single mistake to end the combat. Sei, Kyla, and the plant monster might have as well been on a different continent for all the recognition that William gave them. Any loss of focus, even the slightest bit he knew, would prove fatal.

As intricate as it was, the dance of death ended simplistically and in the blink of an eye. One moment the creature was darting its head forward, jaws opened wide, and the next William had his hands grasped firmly around either side. It would only have taken a minimal amount of exertion for his inhuman strength to crack the creature's maw irreparably, but William was too aroused to end the fight in such a delicate way. Heaving with all of his might, William wrenched his clawed hands apart, and act which split the creature's head (and three feet of its trailing body) in half with a bone chilling squelch. Finished, William dismissively shrugged and tossed the mutilated Alpha Demon back into the murky Haide Swamp never to surface again.

[Amber Eyes]

Kyla had been too busy watching everything happen between Sei and William. The girl had been using her time instead to peel the lesser crocopede off of 'Fluffy'. Soon, she was shifting her fingers between the razor sharp teeth of the beast and prying its mouth open. The beast she was trying to help howled a little bit through its strange mouth, and Kyla gently shushed it. Within a few moments the crocopede head, as well as the rest of the body, fell to the ground, its body remaining afloat on the surface of the water, legless and armless.

Kyla looked at her fingers, blue blood seeping out of the tips and trailing down into her palms. The teeth of the vicious beast had been extremely sharp to the touch. The fact that Kyla had gently handled the mandibles, and still managed to suffer deep cuts on her fingers was a testament to just how bad Fluffy was probably hurting at the moment. She looked to her new friend, watching as vines and moss covered the curved line of holes that littered the creatures arm.

By this point, William was done with his fun, and had gotten back with Sei and Kyla.

"So, what do we do with this thing," William asked, not sure if he was going to have more entertainment today. Kyla looked to Sei with pleading eyes. They couldn't kill Fluffy, not after he had helped them find, and kill the real monsters. Sei looked to both of his generals with genuine concern on his features.

The next thing they knew, they had appeared at a different part of a forest, a blue light in each of the members quickly fading into their chests. Kyla looked about, finding that the trees of the swamp had gotten thicker. The smell had gotten better too, it seemed, and lying behind William was a stockpile of weapons, armor, and even a small, gold dagger in particular with gold coins sprinkled all around it. They had found the guardian first, and now they had found the 'treasure'.

"Sei....I think this is its home...." Kyla said, looking to her father.

[Silence Sei]

Sei looked around to the darker area of the marsh. By the fact that Misery was walking around the trees without ay prompt from his team mates did seem to indicate that this area was where the beast resided. Sei looked to William and then Kyla once more. Eventually, more people would come looking for the treasure, and if the crocopedes laid eggs, there would be more disappearances. They would come looking for the wrong killer in full force, even if the Ixian Knights vouched for the thing.

"This was his home," Sei finally spoke, walking over to the creature, which turned to await questioning, "He's got a new home at Ixian Castle." William scoffed at the idea of taking the plant beast home, but soon became too immersed with looking at the variety of stuff that was as big as the Revenant himself.

"You mean, we're keeping Fluffy?" Kyla asked, genuinely excited.

"Yes, we're keeping Misery," Sei corrected, looking back towards the beast, "If he wants to come with us..."

The beast looked to the three of them, walking over to the treasure trove and picking up the gold dagger Kyla had eyed earlier. He brought it over to the girl and offered it to her, and she hesitantly took it, nodding her appreciation. By this point, if William had wanted anything, he would have taken it, or so the creature thought, so Misery merely walked over to the Revenant and touched his shoulder.

"Ah, William made a friend," Sei spoke with a light grin, the demon looking towards the plant creature. Sei looked back to both of his generals with a smile. "I think its mind is made up, let’s go home..."

With that, a blue light grew within each member of the party, as well as the treasure itself, and within a second, the group was in Ixian Castle, right in the Generals meeting room.

"I could get used to this..."


((Spoils: The Ixian Knights request the use of a new NPC: Misery. Misery is a plant creature that can teleport anywhere, so long as a member of the group has a general idea of what the place looks like. The teleport is instantaneous. Furthermore, Misery's very touch causes large rashes and very irritated skin on people it doesn't like, and not so much on people it does like. It is also immune to William Arcus' hot aura. Any Ixian Knight who wishes to use Misery must first quest with the creature to gain its trust. The people it trusts right now are Kyla, Sei, William, and any character that has a child with them when they meet the beast.

Secondly: The Ixian Knights gain a plethora of various weapons/armor/items, from Misery's treasure. I'd like to request a 10% bonus to the funds of each character in this quest to reflect that))

[Revenant]

The shift had been so quick and subtle that William hadn't even noticed that the Ixian trio were no longer in the plant creature's forest hideout until a horrified scream caught his attention. His attention shifted from to tarnished breastplate that he had plucked from the beast's treasure hoard to examine, eager for another fight, only to find that the scream was coming from Ra-shavon, one of the Ixian janitors, and was directed at him. Confusion clouded William's mind for a moment before he realized that Misery had done his teleportation trick again and that, as Ra-shavon had never seen William's demonic form, the sudden appearance of a gore and slime covered demon had been too much for the humble janitor from Fallien.

Sighing, William let his demonic visage fall away, his flesh knitting back to his normal, human appearance. His blood was still alight with the excitement of his encounter with the demonic Alpha beast and he had been yearning for more bloodshed, but there was little chance that he would get to kill the plant creature as Sei had apparently adopted it.

"Go on," William said, gesturing dismissively at Ra-shavon, "your services are no longer required today." Ra-shavon nodded, having calmed down somewhat as he had noticed that the demonic creature was one of the Ixian Captains and was in the company of Lord Orlouge himself.

William shook his head scornfully as the janitor fled. "You always choose such brilliant help, Sei," he said, throwing as much sarcasm as he could into his words. William was plainly unhappy that Sei's adoption essentially forbade him from continuing his fight with Misery and wanted the Mystic to know it.

An unhappy Revenant, after all, was a dangerous creature.

In reply, Misery shuffled up to lay his wounded appendage upon William's shoulder in a gesture reminiscent of the one he had made when imparting the gift of the golden dagger upon Kyla. William blinked, confused, until he looked down and saw that he was still holding the tarnished breastplate. It was battered and worn, though made of Alerian titanium, and apparently it was now his.

"Great," the Revenant muttered, "I go an pick up this shoddy piece of crap to waste some time and you think I'm claiming it?" Misery's flytrap mouth twisted at the edges in what William could only assume was the creature's way of smiling.

"Bah," William spat, annoyed and exasperated, and then swatted Misery's seaweed off of his shoulder with a not-too-gentle backhand.

The creature's smile instantly vanished as it howled in pain. Even William, as callous as he was, could only stare at the creature in shocked surprise.

"I didn't hit it THAT hard," he said defensively, noting the angry looks that Sei and Kyla were shooting his way.

Spoil:
Tarnished Titanium Breastplate - This titanium breastplate is chipped, worn, and quite tarnished. It it large enough for William to wear in demon form, though would be wobbly on his human form and thus make it impractical to wear. Not only that, but its shoddy nature makes it little more useful at the moment than a regular steel breastplate. However, should time and effort be put into fixing it up by a decent blacksmith, the breastplate can be restored to full functionality.

[Amber Eyes]

Kyla looked to Sei and then back down at her dagger. As she held it, the blade started forming a small pile of coins onto the ground. The girl shifted an eyebrow up as she watched the weapon create money for her. A gold dagger in battle was useless, but a gold dagger in the bazaar, one that made a steady cash flow, was the envy of every shopaholic.

Shopaholics like Anita.

"The Althanas economy just went up.....the Orlouge sisters is going on a shopping spree!" The girl squealed as she ran over to Misery, hugging the creature. The beast howled once more and nursed its arm, the same one William had struck. Kyla stopped for a moment, removing the seaweed and vines that had covered the bite marks of the crocopede. There, embedded into the arm of the plant monster, were four of the reptilian beasts’ teeth, still sharp and incredibly painful if Fluffy's reactions were any indication.

Kyla put the dagger down for a moment, shifting the plant life on Fluffy's arm around and slowly picking out the teeth. She yelped and dropped each tooth as she did so, the cutting edges of the things causing another blue pool of blood to leave the girls hands.

Soon, all of the teeth had been removed, and Misery sealed the wound once more. Kyla knelt down and looked at the teeth, picking up her dagger as she did so. She looked to her uncle and then to William. "These could be useful to Dorian," the girl plainly stated before standing up and leaving the room. She had to go buy some things, after a quick visit to Aislinn in the infirmary.

After all, Anita and her needed to play dress up with Fluffy later, and he needed clothes to fit the part. Over all, just another average day for the Orlouges, and their newly extended family known as the Ixian Knights.


((

Also, the Ixian Knights also gain 4 Crocopede Teeth: These teeth are extremely sharp, to the point that just touching them makes a deep cut on an unguarded hand. They could be used for blades, if a blacksmith would fix them up.))

[Lord Anglekos]

Story: 18/30
Despite its short length and intention to be a nice, quick little thread, the entire thing had an episodic feel that was actually quite charming. Revenant's conclusion was mildly humorous.

Character: 19/30
A couple instances of humor and interesting interaction between the creature Misery and Revenant helped this score.

Writing Style: 12/30
This would have been higher, but I had to dock a couple points for lack of capitalization at some points and punctuation. For the most part, Revenant had the fewest mistakes.

Wildcard: 6/10
A quick, short little thread with an interesting twist that entertained me somewhat. At this rate, Sei, I won't be judging too many more of your threads before you hit the level cap!

Final Score: 55/100
Silence Sei gets 1000 EXP and 120 GP, and his spoil.
Revenant gets 825 EXP, 120 GP and his spoil.
Amber Eyes gets 700 EXP, 120 GP, and her spoil.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added.