Raptra

The Job af the Assassin and Life of the Prince

The moment Robynne received the instructions, she knew that she had to be even more wary of Allister. Even if a servant was found to be incompetent, such a decision made by him would be a hasty one, one he would make with an ulterior motive. He had no reason to suspect her of anything, unless he had spies of his own. Regardless, it was apparent that he had an eye on her. She just had to lie low for the next couple of days so that he could not confirm any suspicions he might have, and if he would continue not to leave her be, she knew that she could take it up to the royal family.

Allister might have authority over the servants at the palace, but the members of the royal family were the ones who decided on who took that position. She was certain that Mathazar would have a word with the butler if she were to lodge a report against him. In addition, she was well liked among the other servants, who would definitely vouch for her if necessary. She did not have to leave the palace this night, for she had already instructed some spies to keep watch at the orphanage.

---

After getting treated followed by some rest, Eliezer had noted that the Night Owl had vanished, and hoped that he was behaving in this foreign state. The Sorene authorities were immensely supportive of Dainia's crown prince, always taking into account the hard time he and his companions had on the way. Hildebrand was by his prince's side for the most part, accompanying him to all official meetings. It was night when Eliezer had just finished speaking to a couple of Sorene nobles in the private lounge that the Dainian group was allocated, and when they had left, the prince poured two glasses of wine and turned to his knight, who was standing by his seat.

"You have been diligent the whole of today, Sir Hildebrand. Take a seat and join me for a drink," Eliezer said, gesturing to one of the empty chairs at the table.

Hildebrand was surprised. "Me, Your Highness? I appreciate the invitation, but I... really should not."

"The Sorene soldiers are alert, Sir Hildebrand. I do believe that you can afford a rest."

The knight nodded, awkwardly sliding into one of the seats. His mind raced for a moment as he took a sip of wine, wondering if there was something he should say. Not everybody had a chance to have a drink with the crown prince of Dainia, after all. Thankfully, Eliezer spoke up first.

"I would just like to say, Sir Hildebrand, that I am extremely grateful for your company. What had happened must have been hard for you, and despite your loss, you still chose to take up this duty. When you finally do see your family again, let them know that the crown prince extends his condolences to them as well."

"Thank you, Your Highness. I hope that my letter has already reached them."

Letter? The mention of it jolted Eliezer's memory. He had promised to write to Raven once he had arrived in Sorene, but he had been too busy to remember. He decided that he would do it right after this. The two men sat in silence for quite some time, before the knight brought another topic up.

"You really trust this, Night Owl, Your Highness?"

"I do not have a reason not to, the man saved my life. I can only hope that he does not have any intention to come with us to Sorene, other than what he had said."

"Still, I cannot help but wonder of his whereabouts at this current moment."

"If he were here, I would have invited him to join us."

---

A messenger from Sorene would arrive at the orphanage in the morning with a letter bearing the familiar royal seal. It would be handed to Raven, and the following message would be read upon opening it:

My dearest Raven,

I trust that you and the orphans under your care are doing well. I have arrived in Sorene, but not without difficulty. I am unsure if you have already been informed of the attack on my convoy on the way to Sorene. Only a few of us have survived the ambush, and I would like to express my gratitude to you for sending the Night Owl after us. I might not be alive if it was not for him. He is currently not right by us, but as you have trusted him to be in our company here in Sorene, so shall I. I assure you that we are well taken care of, as we shall be under the protection of the Sorene authorities until we return to Dainia. Until we meet again, my lady.

Best regards,
Eliezer of Dainia

Pair of Hunters

With hope that the creature had to tire at some point, Shamira stayed put within the rocks, though flinching slightly with every impact that would make the structure tremble. She knew that at the same time, the werebeast outside was hoping that with its repetitive striking, the formation that currently protected her would give out. It was impossible to determine the outcome of the struggle at such a point, though, in the event that it did not end up in her favor, she would be prepared to cause a distraction with another crossbow bolt before running again. As she readied her weapon, however, the ramming suddenly ceased, followed by sounds of struggle that seemed to be coming from slightly further away. Dare she stand to take a look at what had happened? With a deep breath, she eventually did exactly that, peering through the crack to observe the scuffled that had started.

It was a terrifying yet magnificent sight. A second beast had picked up on the commotion and was currently battling her first attacker for its prey. The smaller creature must have been desperate for food to have taken on the bear, fighting with a ferociousness and savagery uncommon even for a werebeast. It was possible that now would be the best time to flee while they were distracted with each other, but keeping in mind that the creatures were battling it out over her, there was a chance that they would both switch their focuses to her and tear her to shreds once she emerged from the formation. Stay, or run? As she contemplated this decision, the fight was then taken further into the woods, leaving her unattended.

This was her chance! She swiftly slid through the opening of the formation and took off in the opposite direction from the beast battle. That was when the she heard the fighting stop. The surrounding forest was quiet once again, and she scrambled behind a tree some feet from the rock formation, leaning slightly out to see which creature would emerge as the victor. To her surprise, it was the smaller of the two, and she watched as it took its wolf form and limped, injured and drained of energy, towards the stones where it apparently still thought she was. She raised her loaded crossbow from where she was, initially eager to end this easy target. Taking out even one more werebeast would be beneficial to Lightstal, would it not?

Wait... what was it doing? She raised an eyebrow when the wolf took an unexpected turn to leave without even checking the opening in the stones. Had it picked up on something else? Suddenly, any intimidation she had felt by it was gone. As it dragged itself away, all she saw was a wounded animal, fighting to survive just like her and her fellow humans. Her finger shook as it rested over the trigger of her weapon. Kill it, kill it now! It's just a monster! What was it that was stopping her? It looked to be near death regardless, but she eventually lowered her weapon with a sigh, deciding not to put it out of its misery. She would leave it up to fate, figuring that in its condition, it was highly likely that it would be taken out by a stronger predator.

"Just this one time, buddy..." she muttered, watching the large canine disappear into the woods.

Pair of Hunters

Yeah no worries, things are just gonna be a little irregular for the time being. I'll let you know if I won't be responding for more than a week.

Word association Game!

Brain

Ban the Person above you

Banned because this doesn't seem like it'll survive if I don't.

The Job af the Assassin and Life of the Prince

Meanwhile in an alternate universe...

Hildebrand: Who is this 'Moon Raven'?

Eliezer: She's my girlfriend.

Hildebrand: No way!

Eliezer: Oh yeah...

Also, if you'd like to include Hildebrand or Robynne in your posts, feel free to give them any dialogue.

The Job af the Assassin and Life of the Prince

From the way the stranger had addressed Eliezer, the prince had a rather good idea of who was behind the mask, but he was not going to make an outright assumption. "So be it. You will ride with us to Sorene, though, you must have a name that you go by, lest you have us referring to you as 'the Moon Raven's lackey' during our time together."

As Eliezer and Hildebrand got onto their horses, the knight asked the prince a question. "Your Highness, who is this 'Moon Raven'?"

"She is... an ally," Eliezer responded.

"To the crown?"

The prince shook his head. "Only to me."

The answer just confused Hildebrand even more, but the knight decided to stop prodding. The three road swiftly out of the forest and along the path to Sorene through the night, and arrived at their destination at the break of dawn. The guards at the gates of Sorene recognized the crown prince of Dainia, and seeing the condition that he and his companions were in, immediately ushered the young men through and alerted the staff of Sorene Palace. Eliezer had a chance to report their encounter with the Lunarian assassins to the authorities, who then informed the guards at the border to look out for such people. They had their wounds treated, and were given accommodation so they could rest. While Eliezer attended to some matters, both Andy and Hildebrand were free to wander around the district of Sorene that they been brought to, or stay in their given quarters.

---

As the Sun rose over the Kingdom of Dainia, a lone knight entering the kingdom dashed straight to the palace and through its gates on horseback, startling the surrounding guards and servants. The guards were about to attack, but fortunately stopped in time when they saw that she bore the Dainian crest. The disturbance outside attracted the attention of the other prince still at the palace, who emerged from the entrance to see what the commotion was about.

Upon seeing Mathazar, Gertrude immediately strode up to him and spoke. "Dame Gertrude Monday returning by order of the crown prince to report an unfortunate incident that has befallen the convoy on the way to Sorene, Your Highness. The convoy was ambushed by Lunarian assassins, and the only survivors of the attack are myself, one other knight, and His Highness Prince Eliezer."

She presented a Lunarian dagger to the prince, who, while examining it, stayed silent for a moment. So, despite the efforts of the Red Robin, his brother had still managed to make it out alive. "Where is the crown prince currently?"

"He has continued on to Sorene with the other knight and a masked stranger who protected him during the attack, Your Highness."

"A masked stranger, you say?"

"Yes, Your Highness, if it was not for him, Prince Eliezer might not have survived the ambush."

"Interesting..." Mathazar looked up at the knight from the dagger in his hands. "Thank you for the report, Dame Gertrude, you must be exhausted. You are dismissed for the rest of the day, please take a good rest."

---

When night fell, the Red Robin was in a private section of Gloomvale Tavern, pacing back and forth across a table from the survivors of the group that had carried out the ambush in the forest the day before. Although hooded with the red mask hiding her face, the young woman was clearly frustrated. There was a moment of tense silence before she finally spoke up.

"Three, three survivors out of the entire convoy... and one of them had to be your target. Would any lady or gentleman here be willing to explain how that happened?"

Silence ensued once again, with the group of assassins glancing at one another before one finally broke it. "There was hesitation to take the prince out after learning that he is under the protection of the Moon Raven, Miss."

The Red Robin slammed the tip of the Lunarian dagger given to her by Mathazar into the wooden table. "You don't work for the Moon Raven, you work for me!"

The group before her flinched, but one of them had to point something out to her. "If we do manage to successfully assassinate the crown prince, you will be in danger if she finds out that we work for you, and she will find out."

She released the dagger with a smirk, leaving it standing in the wood. "Are you all that afraid of the Moon Raven? Because, we shall revisit the assassination of Prince Eliezer in due time. Our next goal, is the abduction of this feared assassin."

The Red Robin now had knowledge of Raven's location, and had been spying on her the night before when she had passed the children under her care to an unknown elderly man she had referred to as 'master'. Also, from what she had been told, Raven's companion was currently with the crown prince in Sorene. It would be safe to assume that she was alone, and the perfect time to strike would be within the next few days. Of course, with the unexpected failure of the first job, they would take extra precautions for this one.

Pair of Hunters

The sign came soon enough, with the rustling in a bush right in front of the group attracting the attention of the wary hunters. The leading members immediately readied their weapons, pointing them straight at the source of the sound. However, the beast that had leaped out of hiding made an unexpected move by emerging behind the team, dealing its first blow on the last individual. Startled cries were let out by the rest of the group as the werecreature tore through several of them, while the rest scrambled away after several attempts to incapacitate the creature had failed.

Shamira quickly glanced around at the bodies of her fallen companions, or what was left of them, angered. Not just at their deaths, but how the scene before her reflected the situation of not only the hired hunters of Lightstal but its people in general. It only took one, one werebear to eliminate half a team of trained fighters and send the rest running. Were they truly that pathetic? Were the humans really that helpless against these monsters?

A mixture of rage and fear stirred inside her, each emotion fighting for control as she glared defiantly back into that soulless white pupil that showed the creature its next target. She thought about her duty to the town and its citizens, and aimed her loaded crossbow straight at the werebear before firing. The creature let out a deafening roar of pain and proceeded to yank the bolt out with its paws. Shamira flinched slightly at the bellow, but continued shooting at the furry predator. All she had done was to create a small distraction, but she knew that she would run out of ammunition if she did not think of something else soon.

Deciding to conserve her remaining shots, she had allowed the werebear time to remove the bolts from its hide and turn towards her once again. Looking into the savage eyes of the creature once again, her flight response took over this time, and she decided that it was time to book it, realizing that there was a chance to fulfill her duty to Lightstal only if she was still alive to do so. With the bloodthirsty monster hot on her heels, she took off through the trees, only thinking of getting to a safe place where she could collect her thoughts. After a short while of sprinting and leaping over fallen tree trunks while the large creature barreled through obstacles to get to her, she found herself heading towards a rock formation mostly covered in vines, offering a small orifice that she could probably just fit through.

As any opening she could use to get away from the werebear was currently more than welcome, she dove forward, sliding in through the crack a split second before the snout of the creature slammed against the rocks. She landed on what felt like a pile of dead leaves, while the formation shook and pebbles rained over her as the roaring monster continued to aggressively ram its body against the formation, clawing at the opening. Shamira took a moment to catch her breath and then felt around her, finding the area to be enclosed except for the opening she had entered through. She had bought some time for herself, but she was now trapped.

She could try shooting the creature through the hole, but with her limited ammunition, she had to ensure that she would hit a vital spot, which would allow her to escape. However, the werebear's movements were currently too erratic for her to get a good shot. She did not know what good waiting it out would do, but she figured it was worth doing anyway.

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

For non-Discord users, this is still active but will continue to be as slow for the time being, as quite a few players have reported having to deal with RL commitments at this time.

A Familiar Face

Delphine had made a few stops on her way out, bumping into classmates and new friends. New students always had a chance to start over with making an impression on their schoolmates, and what had been happening so far told her that she had to be doing something right. She saw her project partner as she approached the gate and gave him a wave.

"So, I was wondering. Do you know any good places for a bite and a discussion? Other than Starlight Flavors, of course. No need to worry about my budget, I'm not on one. Ooh, and if the dessert there's like really great, it'll even by my treat," she finished off with a wink.

She figured it would be safe to suggest going to a nearby public place. She was not going to overstep possible boundaries by asking to go over to his house or inviting him to hers, at least not yet, though those options did cross her mind.