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Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:30 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:13 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:58 am
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:55 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:19 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:00 pm
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:03 am
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He cocked his head and regarded the Wyvern, which noticed and, despite the fact that he could easily slay it, hissed at him, baring formidable teeth; Indeed, what to do with it?
"that isssss.... a good quesssstion....."
He eyed the ring around its foot then wondered if, perhaps, its memories could help them figure out what was going on here. He walked over to the Wyvern, which continued to hiss until he was within striking distance, then smacked it across the muzzle as it tried to graze him with its stinger, making it yelp and leaving four parallel wounds across its face. The wyvern shook its head, and he grabbed one of its horns, forcing its head against the ground.
It struggled, uselessly, as he laid both forepaws against its temples, and closed his eyes, crooning softly the necessary Magika and he cawed sharply as a torrent of sight, sound, taste, emotions, everything that made the wyvern what it was flooded his mind. The Wyvern convulsed under him; the technique was always incredibly painful for both the creature having its memory being probed and the one probing.
The flood of information was too MUCH, even for him and he mentally strained through the images, getting glimpses of the Wyverns life; life in a cave full of other adolescent Wyverns all competing for food, the thrill of the hunt, of the kill.... and scattered through its memory, glimpses of humans, humans that for some reason it did not attack on sight. He twitched his entire body as the memory of spreading wings and baring its neck in a gesture of submission, played; it was a common enough thing amongst Wyverns, but he'd never heard of a wyvern voluntarily doing it in front of a non-Wyvern. He played the memory again, his entire attention focused on it...
The wind was cold, this high up into the mountains; this was the domain of the Ice Eagles, the enormous Eaglelike creatures that made their nests amongst the peaks and hidden valleys. He twitched his tail to dislodge a icicle of frozen venom from the glistening black bone blade, and called out, as instinct made him, announcing his presence to anyone hidden amongst the rocks as he moved through the snow covered ground, following the talon marks in the ground, left by previous Wyverns visiting this area. He didn't know why he had been compelled to come here; some invisible force seemed to irresistibly lure him to this place, and so he had come.
Abruptly, he felt his broad clawed feet fall through something, and he threw himself back in panic, only to feel slim but strong ropes tighten around his feet and pull him back into the hole he'd found, ( Bakher twitched as he recognized a pit trap set up specifically for hunting winged beasts like Wyverns and Gryphons) and he shrieked as he slammed into the ground, thrashing uselessly as a net was thrown onto his back, tangling his head and wings up.
He'd cried out in terror, furiously lashing out as he smelt the distinctive scent of humans all around him, but the ropes binding his feet were strong, and the net further hampered his efforts. The humans swiftly grabbed his head and forced it to the ground, then a sharp spike of agony at the back of his skull as a human pressed something against it, then...nothing.
Bakher pulled himself out of the memory with a snort, keeping his paws pressed against the Wyverns head, and maintaining the Magikal connection. His crest flared as large as it would go, he mulled over what he had seen so far, then flattened the massive feathers against his skull and resumed viewing the memory.
He awoke some time later, his stinger instinctually lashing out it a arc around him, but strong ropes bound it to his broad back. He snorted ice out of his nostrils, abruptly noticing that the severe cold of the cave he'd been pulled into no longer bothered him. And he felt different, STRONGER...
The faintest whisper of movement drew his attention to a human wearing a cloak against one of the walls; the biped watched him intently, its eyes glowing a feral yellow from under the hood of its cloak. He shivered under the cold gaze, and thus didn't make a noise when the human came over to him, and ran a hand along the side of his jaw. That was when he noticed that the human had no smell, and then he abruptly noticed that the hand that moved over his scaled skin wasn't the soft, pink flesh of a human, but rather the same tough, slightly iridescent scale and leathery hide as his own hands and feet. He softly called out, and the cloaked figure pulled out a silver blade from within its cloak, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the sharp pain of his throat being cut.
To his eternal surprise, he heard the knife cut through rope, and felt the ropes binding him to the floor fall away. He opened his eyes and rose, keeping his eyes on the figure. He was about to flare out his wings and attack, when he felt....something, something big, vast, and powerful, enter his mind, and his desire to attack faded away, replaced by a feeling of, of.... BELONGING, like he'd last felt when he had been with his Dam, shortly before he'd left. He looked down at the figure, and bowed, deeply, baring his throat to the one before him.
The figure chuckled, roughly, and pushed back its hood as it stepped forward again and laid a hand on his noise. The wyvern shuddered as a wave of energy filled him, and he looked at the face of the biped; it was a Draconian.
Bakher severed the connection abruptly and slid off the Wyvern in shock; that was impossible! Last he'd heard, the Humanoid descendants of a few of the Dragonkin who'd been captured and experimented on by the humans had centuries ago, been wiped out by humans after instigating some of the most bloody wars in human history! how had any of them survived the wars they'd helped bring about, and the vengeful survivors who, when they realized just who had forced them to kill each other, had laid aside their differences and swiftly slaughtered the Draconians; more importantly than how this one had survived the purges was why was this one altering Wyverns, and what for?
He panted, rapidly, and looked over at Kirias, and cleared his throat. "we have a rrrrreally big prrrrrrroblem Kirrrrrriasssss.... a Rrrrreally big one..."
He swiftly told her what he had seen, then crawled over to a tree, the effort of the Magika having almost utterly drained him of strength. He slumped against the rough bark, and surveyed the now docile Wyvern, and knew that he'd need to go back through its memories again; they needed to know everything it knew, once he'd regained his strength.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:41 am
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Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:39 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:00 am
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:49 am
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 8:01 am
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 2:59 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:05 am
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He shook his head a little as he thought; Draconians were bad news, but historically, they'd only been major threats to humans. Then again, they were more than willing to fight non-humans, as several species had found out.
He stretched his limbs as Kirias's spell took effect, and rose, going over to the strangely quiet Wyvern.
"thankssss forrrr the sssspell...."
He placed a paw against its head, and cursed as he realized that the Wyvern was barely breathing; something he;d done during his probe had evidently done some internal damage. He closed his eyes and sent a Magikal probe in, and recoiled; the creatures major blood vessels were all being constricted by something, something that pulsed and ebb in his minds eye. A suicide mechanism of some sort?
He turned his attention to examining the rest of the Wyvern, abruptly noticing the small metal capsule lodged in the thick muscles of the wings. He peered closely at it, and grimaced; definatly a kill device of some kind, likely somethign that would go off if the unmistakable metabolic trauma that a Magikal probe induced was detected.
He ended the spell, and looked up at Kirias. "I trrrrriggerrrrred a "Kill-Ssssswitch " of ssssssome kind. I need to worrrrk fassst and dirrrrrty; thissss Wyverrrrrnsss going to die, sssssoon."
He clamped his paws over its head again, and invoked the probe spell, immediately almost being overwhelmed by the dying wyverns thoughts and emotions. He forced the foreign thoughts from his mind, and delved into its memory, trying to dredge up the memories that the Wyvern had of the Draconian, and more importantly, its location; he hadn't gotten that from his first probe, nor would he have been this rough normally, but with the Wyverns organs shitting down from loss of oxygen, he didn't have time for gentle.
- no, no, no, no, definitely not what I need but usefull.... there!-
there it was; the Wyverns memories of the path it took on its fateful flight to the Draconian. He frantically played them as fast as he could, commiting landmarks and terrain to memory; if he saw the land now, he'd be able to follow roughly the same path the Wyvern had. He considered pulling out now that he had what he wanted, but he still had time; the Wyverns brain hadn't been damaged by lack of oxygen yet, so he skimmed its memories, and recoiled as a series of memories played; it was the Wyvern in a cavern with hundreds of other Wyverns, all displaying the metal ring and unique physiology. He continued to skim, then pulled himself out as the Wyverns heart suddenly ruptured in its chest.
He opened his eyes and lept away as blood fountained from the Wyvern; whatever had killed it did so in a very gruesome manner. Apparently it constricted blood vessels, then ruptured every one of them all at once after a certain amount of time. He watched the nerveless twitches and spastic movements of the Wyvern a moment longer, then doubled over and threw up, violently; as bad deaths went, this was one of the worst, and messiest, he'd seen yet, and he'd seen some really bad ways to die in his lifetime.
"I... know...wherrrrre....the...Drrrraconian...isssssss..." He gasped between heaves, and collapsed to his belly as the cost of the Magik hit home.
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:23 pm
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