Expensive Mistakes

Thread Status: Open
Players involved: Sparx, Nate, Horvat
Characters involved: Kamilo, Jean, Tabassum
Setting: South Cutpurse Plains, cliff overlooking the ocean
Time: 25th Haliea, late evening
Weather: Cloudy with heavy mist

The glow of a campfire was barely visible through the mist that hung over the southern cliffs of Cutpurse Plains. Huddled around the fire trying to keep the moisture in the air from extinguishing the flames was a lanky figure, a shaggy adolescent with pointy fox ears and three bushy tails. Kamilo the kitsune was a regular of these plains, where bandits and other such delinquents were common sights on the roads. He was a young practitioner of the trade and often had his hands in people's pockets and purses, but today the dreary weather had fatigued him and kept him close to his current makeshift camp. Being a creature driven by fire, all the water hanging in the air just made him feel very put out.

"Stupid mist," Kamilo grumbled to himself as he grumpily jabbed a stick into his fire, which was hardly creating enough heat to be worth the trouble. His scarce belongings were tossed haphazardly between him and the poorly built lean-to he had been using for shelter for the past few days: some extra clothes, tools, and a couple of bags with supplies and the few coins and items he had managed to snatch around the area. The kitsune's luck had been horrid as of late, and he had decided to blame it on the fairly remote location.

Tomorrow he would move closer to the delta, where there were likely to be a lot more people with a lot more wealth moving about. Unless something more compelling came up before the sun did...

Jean was walking the plains for hours, trying to find a good spot to camp. He seemed tired, a lie he put up to fool others into mistaking him for someone weak. He was covered head to toe in his usual attire, his eyes being the only visible part of him, he had a thicker layer of masks on though and a winter cloak. The mist must've been getting to him. He hadn't been very lucky with victims as of late either, with every step he took, he blurted out yet another colourful curse. At this rate, he was getting genuinely tired.

He reached the cliff that Kamilo has chosen to use as his camp and only managed to spot the fire, completely oblivious to the Kitsune sitting right next to it. "

"YES!" Jean blurted. "Gods really do exist! A fire! A fire just for me!" he yelled whilst running to sit at the campfire. "What kind of sod would just leave a campfire untended like this?" he breathed a weary sigh.

He noticed Kamilo just as he sat down. "Er..." he glanced at Kamilo's belongings and grinned. "Hello there, these belong to you?"

In the distance, a swath of light shimmered. A wondrous array of colors, lighting up the ocean on the horizon. The light twisted and moved, pulsating as the colors shifted, twinkling like the sky above. Slowly the colors moved left and right, dimming before brightening up once more. There was a flash of deep, forest green before poka-dots of yellow appeared only to be replace with a flashing crimson and swirls of a deep, calming blue. And then the lights stopped and the hunt began. She stalked up towards the cliff with years of practice, moving slowly as to not create wake.

Kamilo was a bit startled when he first heard someone exclaim nearby about a fire. He started to rise and looked around, worried that he might have to make a quick break for it, but the thick mist and the dark made it hard for him to tell if there was anyone around. Cautiously, the adolescent kitsune grabbed the strap of his main bag and was about to start gathering the rest of his things when the newcomer plopped down next to his fire.

Incredulous, Kamilo stared at the man with wide eyes. Who in their right mind just ran up to random fires without thinking that someone else might be there? And when this human gestured to Kamilo's belongings, he felt more insecure. With his foot, the kitsune nudged his things closer together so he could more easily keep tabs on them.

"Who are you?" Kamilo demanded suspiciously, ears laid back. Was this guy stupid or just overly friendly? Was he trying to throw Kamilo off guard? A kitsune of his clan knew that you could never be too paranoid about the intentions of others. "And what are you doing all the way out here? Using my fire?"

Jean cursed himself and mentally slapped himself. Yes, smooth there buddy. What next? Walk into a castle and start asking if their gold belongs to them? He berated himself.

He quickly tossed around the ideas of either pretending to be a traveller or pulling out a bow. He wouldn't manage his bow in time, but he could whip out his small crossbow, maybe threaten the Kitsune a bit, make him spill out any other secrets. The more he thought about it the better.

"I'm..." Jean pulled out a small wooden crossbow, already loaded. 'I'm about to make you meet your maker, and claim this fire as my fire whilst I'm at it." he grinned. "Unless you'd be willing to part with your coin and other belongings?" he offered, but he did intend to at least harm the Kitsune by the time he was done.

Just under a mile out, a great maw opened and let fly numerous viciously barbed hooks at a mile a second. Their quarrel was made meaningless as the cliff shuddered, the hooks cutting through the rock that held it in place. One burst through the fire, sending embers flying, before crashing back down and grabbing onto the ground, narrowly missing Jean crotch. Further back, further inland, countless other hooks followed suit, latching onto the stone to drag the cliff and it's occupant down into the crashing waves below. With a sharp tug, the cliff broke off from the land and began it's decent. In the span of a few seconds, the cliff was flying through the air heading further out to sea, being pulled toward the source of the hooks.

Kamilo, an arrogant adolescent, was not easily intimidated by a little crossbow, especially one made of something as flammable as wood. As soon as the weapon was drawn, Kamilo dropped into a low and elastic stance, wild flames erupting from his palms. Small fireballs such as these were his go-to for defensive tactics because they were fairly easy to control despite his lack of power or experience. Even small amounts of fire could cause damage, or even just scare off an opponent that doesn't want to play with a fire mage.

"Ay, what are you trying to pull!" the kitsune cried. What a weird evening, to go from trying to relax to being threatened over a campfire! What was wrong with this human? Was he touched in the head? "Build your own fire! And I ain't got nothing for you!"

He had slung the more important of his belongings over his shoulders by now, so he was ready to book it if things got more dangerous, which they soon would. Before Kamilo's eyes, his fire was extinguished by some fast projectile, and he heard others crashing down not far away. Before he could figure out what was happening, the cliff began to shake and move. The kitsune glanced toward the items he hadn't collected yet, and in an instant made the decision to leave them and run toward more stable land.

"On second thought, you can keep all that!" he shouted toward Jean as he tried to sprint to safety, leaving the human to help himself however he saw fit.

Jean was taken aback. So many things just happened. Why was the Kitsune running? Why did he leave his things? Why did he pull out something made of wood in front of a Kitsune? 

He was going to merrily start collecting the items that were left behind, until the land shook so vigorously he fell on his rear. "Oi oi oi!" Jean yelled as he scrambled to get up, abandoning the items as well. "What're you pulling off now, you bloody bastard!?" he fired off his crossbow in Kamilo's general direction, then threw the wooden thing right at him - forgetting that he should be running right now.

With an extremely late start, Jean started sprinting as well, though it seemed very unlikely he'd catch up to Kamilo. He stopped in his tracks, blurted out some colourful words at Kamilo, and accepted the fact that he'll be one with the watery depths below.

This is my favourite cloak as well.

A maw opened in a grin as the prey began to fall. But there was only one who fell, only one to play with. Oh what would she do to it? Slowly tear each limb off? Take it's breath from it until the last minute? Maybe some thing else.

She shuddered with joy, anticipating the thrill she got from the pain of others, as the cliff hit the water.
With a surge forward she closed on the toy, eager to... no,  actually that was a much better idea. Yes.

Looming down at him was a massive maw, hooked tendrils narrowly avoiding him as they entered it through the needle like teeth. Two blank dead eyes rested above it, seeming to bore into his soul. It flashed red, the whole body, the almost two miles of her flashed red, before settling on a deep, menacing background glow.

The water vibrated with the words "Hello little thing. I like you. I want to slowly break you until there is nothing left, but I might not. Only if you will spread my name, Tabassum Mandeep. Only if you tell people of the horrors I commit and commit horrors in my name. You could be my herald, or you could be my toy. Now which one?" She closed her mouth so he wouldn't fall through and pushed him to the surface on top of her teeth. Teeth that could very easily open to drop him into he mouth.

Kamilo quickly stumbled onto sturdy land just in time to avoid tumbling down the destroyed cliff. He slung his belongings onto the ground and fell back on his behind to catch his breath. What had just happened? Staring at where the ground had been, the kitsune noticed two things: one, the human who attacked him was nowhere to be seen and therefore must have fallen into the water. Two, there was some sort of great, serpent-like monster where the cliff had fallen with hook-like appendages that looked like what had been used to latch onto the ground and pull it out from under them.

Wait, three- that human seemed to have been snatched up by the menacing monster. What an insane nightmare! Kamilo wasn't sure what to do. The easiest answer was to run and leave the guy whom had just threatened him to face a karmic fate in the jaws of some kind of sea dragon thing. But as a haughty adolescent, Kamilo wasn't satisfied to just flee after being so rudely disturbed. How dare this monster try and harm him like this! How dare it interrupt his fight before he could teach the human a lesson!

"Hey!" the kitsune cried, tails lashing. "You got a lot of nerve, you ugly pile of scales! I was in the middle of something!"

That said, he recalled those fireballs he had meant to use on Jean and flung them at the great beast.