Dantorel

Drakey

A shape-shifting Dragon God
The road was made of dirt. It was not worth the extra cost of stone as very few ever travelled down its length. There were only two travellers, a rather small group. They walked on opposite sides of the path. Both wore dark clothes, signs of some unknown past.

The one on the left was a man. His torn cloak covered his head with a deep hood. His armor, which had most definitely seen better days, was broken and cracked in several places. An old sword, its pommel ornate, hung at his hip, swaying in the rhythm of his gate.

CRACK!!!

Hroth immediately stopped as his head naturally turned towards the origin of the sound. On the other side of the woman appeared three goblins. There skin, scarred and mutilated, was stretched over their bony frames. Each was only clothed in rotten fur lion cloths, wooden cudgels in their hands. They were aiming for the woman, ignoring Hroth in the distance.

With the faintest of smiles, Hroth pulled the shattered longsword from its sheath, only a foot of blade jutted out from the sword's handle. With long strides, Hroth caught up with the woman.
 
"They're mine," Manon muttered, hearing the footsteps of the man behind her. She calculated their appearance quickly. Foot soldiers, probably, not worth the extra effort.

She punctured the first in the neck, pulling her colichemarde from the wound and managing to carve a deep wound into the second's shoulder before they managed to get away. She advanced on the third anyway, keeping an eye out both for the unknown man and for the goblin's teammates.
 
Hroth watched as the woman cut him off with a mutter, easily dispatching the first two enemies. Sadly, Hroth had no intention of letting the woman have her way. With long strides, Hroth overtook the woman.

Suddenly, at least to the goblin, Hroth appeared in front of the retreating monster. With a silent smirk, the man grabbed the goblin by its head and immediately lopped it from the poor creature's neck. Then he dropped the goblin's head at the feet of the woman.

Putting away his blade, Hroth pulled out a small hunting knife from his armor and set about opening up his kill.
 
"...What are you doing?" Manon asked, reeling a little from the sudden attack. She honestly doubted grabbing the enemy before a beheading was a good strategy in any battle. If the goblin had been any faster, he'd have left an opening right there to be clubbed in the groin. Or punched. Whichever hurt more. "On second thought, what did you think you were doing?"

Slicing a body open couldn't be protocol either. Manon sent a wary look at the rest of the path, watching out for any intruders. It left one in such a vulnerable position.

"Never mind." The woman sighed, lazily flicking the blood off her sword and wiping the rest on the unknown man's dust-strewn armour. She slid it right back into the sheath and set off back to the town, keeping an ear out in case he followed.
 
"Hey, how many monsters have you actually killed?" shouted Hroth as he sliced open the goblin's chest. Underneath the skin, embedded within the goblin's sternum laid a gem. It was white in color and only about the size of Hroth's fingernail. Ripping the poor beast's sternum out, Hroth threw it towards the woman.

"Here, catch. Don't let good money go to waste!" Hroth grumbled inwardly as he thought about the prices for the gems. They were goblins and the gems were small and colorless, so maybe 10 silver each? Yea, that was a good estimate.

Quickly, Hroth continued to take the gems from the other two goblins. Contemplating the journey ahead, Hroth decided to sling the headless goblin over his right shoulder. The next town was only about half a day away, plenty of time to make it there before nightfall.

"Here, take these. You killed them, so they're yours." Hroth dropped the two small sternums into the woman's hand once again.

"By the way, what's your name?" The man had become curious about the woman after witnessing her dispatch the two goblins earlier.
 
"It's not important. Or it's Manon. Take your pick. And take the prize." Manon dropped them right back into his hold, eyeing the sternums distastefully. "I have sources of income. The body parts of monsters are not part of that."

Truth be told, she was going to the town nearby to take a few quests. They were her favourite form of income, whether the reward was gold or sellable items. Manon spared the taller man a quick glance, taking in the crack in his armour. "Besides, you look like you need it more than I do. I'm wearing fully intact clothes."
 
Hroth smirked at Manon's words. "I have reasons for wearing this armor." Memories of a past long lost surged through Hroth's mind.

"Anyways, are you heading towards Sentry (the small town less than a day's journey away). I hear that they've been having a bit of trouble up North." Hroth offered Manon a slight smile as he shoved the sternums in a small pouch.
 
"Haven't been able to discern the source of the trouble. Still, yes, I'm headed there." Manon shrugged. So he was going the same way? Good to know the competition thought skull breaking was a valid move. It might be, yes, but in any level of armour more than maybe metal boots it was more a risk than a strategy.

"So, what might your name be? I haven't heard of a hunter walking around in cracked armour. I can't quite guess."
 
Hroth, keeping up his half smirk answered, "The name is Hrothulf, and I guess I would be a hunter now." Hroth thought about his past, the old noble lands of the Talin's, his family's ancestral home. Ravaged now, and no longer his. A dark shadow fell across the man's face as he pulled back his hood. He was rather handsome, if somewhat grim. He wasn't pretty, but he was strong. A white wolf's head poked out from underneath his cloak, painted across the the heart of his armor.

Noticing this, Hroth quickly pulled his cloak over the symbol.

"Well, if we're both heading to the same place, want to take care of some of the harder jobs together?" Hroth gave Manon a sly and slightly suggestive smile as he said these words.
 
"One of those jobs must be going on those quests with you," Manon snarked, unable to keep an amused smirk from rising to her face at that. She kind of missed having someone to joke with, especially since her little brother.

That was something not to spoken of She shoved it back into the deepest recesses of her mind.

The woman's steps increased in tempo, bringing her in front of Hrothulf. Dear lord, who came up with this name? Most of the other commoners she knew had nice, pronounceable names. His sounded like something the nobles gave their children. "Besides, I don't even know you all too well. There's been, what, two minutes since we met? I doubt it's grounds for trusting your life to some stranger."
 
"Well, that would be true, and it is. I don't trust you." Hroth smiled at Manon. "I trust your sword, and that's it." Hroth quickly overtook the woman, getting in front of her as she had done to him.

"Anyways, a sword is a sword, I trust my own blade even more than yours and so I'm not worried about you attacking me." Hroth gave Manon a smirk over his shoulder.
 
Manon sent him an odd look. "I just wiped this sword on your back. Seriously, check. There's a blood stain right there."
 
"ehh, its fine. This cloak is more dried blood than cloth anyways. I'm already planning on getting a new one when we reach town. It should be outside of the Empire."
 
"Really." There was a tone of disbelief somewhere in that word, she swore. "It doesn't look much like it, but I guess that's what you get with black. Or, well, whatever colour you say that is. It looks brownish. Is that from the blood?"

A second's thought was spared to the idea before Manon tossed it aside. "How long have you been fighting to get that much blood on you, anyway? At the very least, lose the cloak for a bit and wash it. That can't be sanitary." She wasn't much one to talk, what with the blood still all over her lower extremities in general, but it was still a good point.
 
"yea, you're probably right." Hroth quickly took of his cloak and threw it into the woods. A great White wolf's head was painted across the back of Hroth's armor. The ancestral crest of his bloodline. The Talin's line had been denounced and their lands taken from them four years ago. (yes Manon would know this).

"I've been hunting for four years, and yes, the brown was the blood." Hroth gave Manon a somber smile, faint but alive.
 
Shit. Noble boy. Actual noble boy.

Oh, wait. Manon calmed a little. Four years of hunting would probably have made him more accepting of the usual briskness that accompanied the job. Maybe she wouldn't be skewered in the back.

The black-haired woman nodded, checking her bag and tossing him an extra cloak from the last town she'd been in. "Take that one. I've got a few more in here. Sure, it might mean losing a blanket, but it seems worth it."
 
Hroth caught Manon's cloak, and in on fluid motion, donned it. "Hey Manon, if you can, then please wipe the shocked look off of your face, it's rather unnerving."

"Anyways, we should hurry up. Sentry is on the horizon." Hroth pointed out the small outline of a town off in the distance.
 
"I'm just surprised my guess was right." Manon sighed, her head flicking up to see the outline. "So were you taught to put cloaks on like that or is it just you? I don't think many people can do it in just one movement."

The second part of the statement caught up. "And if a facial expression is unnerving, you clearly haven't seen a hunter without a proper one. With a sword."
 
"Facial expressions aren't unnerving, it's the shock on people's faces, and then the subsequent revulsion that is unnerving. As for the cloak, four years of hiding one's appearance will teach you a lot of things, but yes most noble boys try to learn how to do it. It makes us look like badasses to the women." Hroth gave the woman A great smile.

"Well, enough about me, what's your past?"
 
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