Rise of Despair

Wolfy Dalfyry

SCREEEEEEEE
@Hylius

Kenna looked down at the letter while she walked and read it aloud once more, albeit quietly, "'Salutations, Kenna. As you are my best warrior, I ask that you travel close to Elitaire to take care of a group of bandits, as they have stolen from many people in Alesien including myself. They reside in a cave a short length away from the main road. I'm sure you can take care of it. Highest regards from Arthur.' Just because I'm the greatest doesn't mean I don't need a break. Wouldn't it be cheaper to send multiple of the weaker warriors?" She nodded to the guards of the entrance to the city and made her way around the outside walls to the stables.

"Hello, Kenna. Where are you traveling to this time?" The stablemaster greeted her as she approached.
"Near Elitaire. Arthur sent me a letter requesting that I take care of some bandits."
"Couldn't he have sent some lesser from closer cities?"
"That's what I thought." Kenna stroked her horse, Lilly's, mane as she spoke, the mare drinking from a water trough. As Lilly already had her saddle on, Kenna hopped onto her back and leaned forward as Lilly stopped drinking and held her head high, hugging her neck. "Hi, Lilly."

Kenna guided the horse to move forward and headed away from Separa. Hopefully, the fight was worth traveling such a far distance.
 
"Good grief... Nobody ever gets something done in this town..."

Orion was repairing his blade, preparing himself to get rid of a bunch of bandits. Apparently there is a bunch of them that recently made a cave near Elitaire, the village that he lived in. The people that lived there were all poor and defenseless, as they could not fend for themselves, and so they asked him to deal with it. Orion, the local blacksmith, was pretty much the only one who could fight there. Trying to make a living of selling and smithing weapons in a village where nobody was able to kill a fly with a gigantic warhammer was doomed to fail, but he somehow managed to make enough money for a living. Mostly from stuff other than smithing weapons, though. He would get money from stuff like forging a hammer for the skinny and frail carpenter, who is almost incompetent enough to even hold a hammer like that properly, let alone an actual weapon. So Orion would mostly earn money through things other than smithing, mostly from doing quests outside of the village. It was not like they missed him, anyway; There was almost nobody that bought his stuff.

Orion was just a young man still, at the mere age of 22. He always dreamed of becoming a famous blacksmith, one that the entire country would know of. Of course, he wouldn't be able to do it here, but there hasn't really been an opportunity to leave the village, as he had far too little money to travel alone. When he was not smithing, he was practicing his own sword skills, so that he would at least be able to defend himself. He was quite skilled with the blade, though he has not really been able to test himself as the village never was threatened, up until now. He also knew of enchanting magic, which he used to further improve his blades. He has created a bunch of weapons now, but obviously nobody ever bought them, so he stored them away in his shop.

And so, he left for the cave. He knew that he was going to be vastly outnumbered, so he needed to use his wits to be able to defeat them. Either that or he had to hope that they were all pathetic at fighting, just like the people in his village... Or he could place his bets on an enchantment that would make his sword shoot beams, but he couldn't let his mana run out. For now, he just headed to the cave, hoping for a miracle.
 
Kenna listened to the sound of Lilly's hooves hitting the cobblestone path, looking up at the sky and sighing, "I've gotta take a break from all this fighting... Maybe some exploring the country... Never seen much of it. I'd probably still be fighting, but at least it would be on my own terms..."

Despite it being a long time from when she had joined Arthur's group of protectors, she was considered the finest fighter, and rightfully so. Before he retired and died, her father was the leader of the guard and had trained her to the best of his ability. Everyone had told her that it would honor him to join the guard and continue the legacy, but she knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was for his daughter to not be chained by war and die. Where was her family anyway? Probably on the other side of the world, she figured. Or dead, whichever.

"Maybe I could try to find them... That'd be fun..." Kenna nodded to herself as she spotted the cave, and urged Lilly to stop. She hopped off the horse's back and started to go towards the cave, but then stopped once she noticed someone else. "Could that be a lookout?" She asked no one in particular as she dove behind a thick trunked tree to watch him.
 
Orion soon reached the cave, annoyed and totally not in the mood for this. But then again, this would be his first real challenge, so he would finally figure out just how skilled he was with the sword. While he definitely did not want to cover up the asses of his fellow villagers, he was eager to finally put himself to the test. This was part of the reason why he actually decided to help them out at all.

After observing the area, not noticing that a warrior was secretly hiding behind a tree, he decided to make his move. First off, he enchanted his sword with astral magic, the blade now glowing light-blue. Astral magic was a rather rare type of magic, not many had the privilege to use a magic such as that. Though his astral magic was by no means the most complex as he mainly focused himself on melee fighting and not on improving his magic, it was very effective against many enemies. Orion did not care that it was considered a rare magic, so long as it would help him out. He also knew of other types of magic to enchant his swords with, but this would give him the greatest chance of victory.

After enchanting his sword, he decided to face them head on. He entered the cave. The bandits were clearly surprised to see him, not expecting someone to just boldly walk into their cave. They were not even equipped with their weaponry yet. "I'm here, you bandits! You will not threaten this village any... Oh, who am I kidding. I'm not cut for heroic speeches, they annoy me. Let us do battle!" The fact that they were not equipped with weapons was a blessing in disguise. He could take this chance to kill some of them before he actually had to face him. And so, he rushed towards one of the bandits, quickly taking his head, to then send a beam of astral magic from his sword to quickly take out another one of them. The bandits were running, looking for any weaponry they could find to face him. Orion took out a few more of them, until they finally were armed.

There were seven more bandits left. Orion could easily take on all of them if he fought them one on one, but unfortunately the bandits had no reason to honorfully duel him like that. Of course they would all try to gang up on him, there was no way that he could take on all of them at once. But surprisingly, Orion held his own, though he did get a few cuts and he would appreciate a little bit of help... "Ugh, curse this village... Why can't they just learn how to fight so that they can get themselves out of this mess? Ridiculous..."
 
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Kenna observed the entrance of the cave for a bit after the stranger went inside, just in case he was to come out again. After realizing that he wasn't going to come out, she stepped out from behind the tree, unsheathed her sword, and took a deep preparation breath. Hopefully, either the bandits were unprepared so she would be able to kill them quickly, or the stranger was willing to fight them and save her some work.

After looking around in case of an ambush, which was not uncommon, Kenna made her way into the cave silently. She guessed it was the latter, as she saw the dead bandits and the stranger being ganged up on, "Guess it's Kenna to the rescue!" She shouted boldly, alerting the bandits to her presence and taking a few's foci off of the poor soul who happened to walk into the cave before her.

She ran forward and sliced one's head off, watching as the severed head fell to the ground and came to rest beside her feet. Kenna then turned to another and stabbed them in the stomach, smiling. She always got a euphoric rush from killing evildoers like dark magic users or, like right now, bandits. She turned her head to look at the stranger and yelled, "Ya better not run now I'm here!" This was a common occurrence, which always angered her. Because her reputation of being a strong warrior in battle was widespread, whenever she saved people who she knew could help her, usually the saved would run like cowards, thinking she would get rid of whoever the attackers were. Which she always could of course, but the burden of having to fight all of them would be tiring.

Kenna ripped the blade out of the bandit's stomach, looking at the blood on her sword for a second proudly.
 
He really was starting to feel the trouble of fighting multiple enemies at once, even if he could still keep up with all of them. But fortunately, out of nowhere, a mysterious female warrior appeared to help him out. She definitely had the aura of someone who had much experience in battle, which was a relief. However, what she didn't realize that as she was looking at the blood on her sword with pride, a bandit tried to sneak up on her to stab her in the back.

"You fool, look out!" Orion rushed as fast as he could and stabbed right through the throat of the bandit, before the bandit could do anything to her. He quickly pulled out and continued to fight the enemies. "What are you doing?! The battle is not over yet! Save your pride for later!" He didn't care if his words angered her, he didn't want somebody to die because of carelessness.

A few moments later, the battle was over. All bandits were defeated and he was mostly unscathed. And so, he decided to head home. He slowly nodded towards the female warrior, before then walking away. He was not looking for conversation right now and wanted to avoid it if possible. He was already in a bad mood. The blacksmith didn't seem to recognize the fact that the warrior that helped him out was quite famous... But his reaction probably wouldn't have been any different if he did know.
 
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