The bounty had hung upon the overcrowded noticeboard, just one slip of white paper among many others, its print having faded with time and weather. Honestly, if Amane hadn't been specifically looking for something fun to do, she wouldn't have noticed it at all, let alone read through its contents and realised how important a quest the unassuming piece of paper contained. An elite amongst the common muck — literally, in this case, for a reward like this could only be accorded by the Falderen nobility. In short, this quest was an amazing steal. It required a party of two however, and a quick glance at her friend's list showed that everyone was either offline, extremely far from her location, or busy in a dungeon or some other unreachable place. She could always try to complete it alone, but this bounty didn't seem targetted towards weaker players, but rather the towards those with at least a couple mastery points invested already, and were able to hold their own in a fight. Perhaps it was the word "dire", or "blood", or maybe even the phrase "twisted and vile creatures", but something was telling Amane that this quest was no pushover, and going in solo would be tantamount to suicide. Biting her lips, she refreshed the list, hoping some new development had occured and a friend had mysteriously logged in. No such luck. But hovering innocuously beside the icon that brought up her friend's contacts was one that represented her guild chat. Of course! She thought, suddenly rejuvenated. She had guildmates now — if she needed a partner, she simply needed to ask if anyone was interested. As she realised so, her hands were already moving on auto-pilot, flicking open the chat window with practiced familiarity as they typed out a quick note. Sending it, all that was left was to loiter around, hoping for replies. Before long, the chime of an incoming notification rang within her brain, and with eager fingers she opened the message that followed, thanking her lucky stars — and one Mahlthor Oakenheart — for this kind turn of fortune. Hiding behind a rock as she currently was, Amane peeped out from behind the structure, peering at the wolves that stalked across the battered expanse in front of them, typing a reply as she did so. Amane Hirota Thanks a lot for agreeing! I'm waiting on the eastern side of Norforva :) I can see a couple of wolves here already; so what's your preference, regular or dire? Pressing the button that would send it, Amane conducted a final check through her inventory, nodding minutely as everything seemed to be in order. She wondered what kind of person Mahlthor would be? He's name sounded vaguely familiar — she was sure he was one of the people she'd met during the guild's formation, but she knew little other than that. Well, it wasn't like it mattered much; Amane supposed she'll find out soon enough. OOC: @Mahlthor Oakenheart Thrown die: 77 +15 for Illumancy
Mahlthor was bored. He had just logged in with the intention of meeting up with some people, but of course they would log out before he could hook up with them. Ah well. This sucks. What should I do now? he wonders to himself. I could explore some more of the lands... I know it's a higher level area, but it might be fun to poke around Norfova some. He arrives in the area, and shortly thereafter he gets a message from the guild. "Oh, looks like one of the guild mates needs an extra body on their bounty." Mothra, the little pet moth, sticks his tiny moth face out from behind Mahlthor's ear. "And look.. it's that Bloodwolf bounty we were looking at earlier. Let's do it!" And with that, the man sends an acceptance response back to @Amane Hirota. Mahlthor OakenheartYeah, no problem! It's going to be fun! Shouldn't be too long for me to catch up with you. I'm here in Norfova already. <Attached is the coordinates to Mahlthor's location> Give me a few minutes and I'll be there! I'm good with whichever you want to tackle, dire or regular. Might be fun to try a dire wolf, though if that's the case we should have an extraction plan ready just in case. True to his word, it isn't but a short wait before the silhouetted form of the large man approaches the field. He squints, looking around for his guild mate. Quietly, so as not to attract attention from the blood wolves off in the distance, he calls "Amane? You around here?" Crossing his massive arms before him, the man chews on his tongue in thought. "I thought this was the location the message included. I didn't get it wrong, did I?" Pulling up the message, he verifies the information. "Yeah, should be here. Did she go on ahead of us?" Thrown die: 23 + 10 for Aeromancy
"I'm here!" Amane called out to her teammate, laughter gleaming in her eyes, taking care to moderate the mirth and volume of her voice so that she wouldn't alert the wolves. "Sorry, I've been hiding behind one of the rocks," she explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, rubbing the back of her neck as she did so. "I forgot that you wouldn't be able to see me." It was an embarrassing mistake to make, but no harm was done, and that lack of coordination thankfully hadn't clued the wolves in into their location. Giving Mahlthor a once over, she unconsciously nodded, confirming her previous thoughts. He had been one of the friends of the Guild Leader, and from their brief meeting seemed personable and lively — both qualities that Amane loved to find in a party member. "I'm up for fighting direwolves, though I'm quite terrible with retreat plans, never had the head for it," she continued, tilting her head towards a group of wolves at the corner of the pack, one of them in particular having wandered off from the rest of the group by quite a distance. Though there were both types of wolves there, the direwolves were leagues larger than their regular counterparts, standing shoulders and heads above the weaker crowd. The lone beast that she had singled out was such a creature, its pelt so dark it seemed almost like a deep shade of red, and it stalked from side to side, observing its surroundings with an uncanny intelligence. "Shall we get that one? If we need to make a quick escape, I'll follow you lead. If you have a plan in mind?" "And would you rather team up to take one down, or shall we attack one each?" After she spoke, Amane would move into a casting position, whispering her incantation under her breath if Mahlthor had no objections to attacking. Because she was focusing on the direwolf, the [Homing Arcane Orb], cast at its weakest level so as to spend the minimal amount of energy, would shoot unerringly towards it, hitting it in the throat with all the accuracy that Arcanamancy was vaunted for. She hoped she wasn't making a mistake, drawing the direwolf's aggro. On one hand, it brought it away further still from the rest of the pack, lowering the risk of the rest of the wolves ganging up on them. But on the other, she was a mage wearing light armour, and the direwolf's enormous bulk gave her the impression that the linen garments weren't going to offer much defence if she got in its way. Well, Mahlthor was wearing what looked to be heavy armour, so hopefully he was fine with tanking the damage. And if he wasn't a tank, or if he chose to take on another direwolf by himself, then Amane supposed she'll have to find a way to manage herself. With a loud snarl the Blood-cursed Direwolf would swung its body over, leaping forwards with a concentrated air of killing intent, saliva flying from its open jaws, and then she didn't have time to further consider her actions, her whole body tensing as she prepared to jump to the side. OOC: @Mahlthor Oakenheart Thrown die: 25 +15 Illumancy
