Hunting Event

A thunderstorm of epic proportions threatens the unprepared desert, ominous clouds swirling in a hurricane-like circle. You've been driven into the one place of safety from the winds - the eye of the storm sits centered over the Descensum and the steep sided bowl that protects the vegetation there is a welcome respite. You aren't the only one who has taken shelter there, and there's not much to do while you all wait for the weird storm to blow itself out. Suddenly, the stillness is broken by the unexpected sight of a white stag stepping out of the mouth of the caverns. A ray of sunlight illuminates it like a storybook painting. An overwhelming urge takes over you. You can't help yourself - you have to have it. The hart leaps back into the dark of the cavern, and the hunt is on! Track the legendary White Hart through the labyrinthine caverns but be wary - the stag has never been captured for a reason!

Skill Claim form

If you survive this thread with at least 3 rounds each, you can claim extra skill points in hunting for participating in a random event! Only the first three participants are allowed to respond. Please be aware that the following event has a hard deadline of October 15th

Code:

[b]Skill[/b]: Hunting
[b]Points claiming[/b]: 15
[b]For what?[/b]: Participated in a hunting-related random event (The White Hart)
[b]Proof[/b]: <a href="LINKHERE">click!</a>

[*code]+15 - <a href="LINKHERE">Participated in a hunting-related random event (The White Hart)</a><br>[*/code]

The small coyote had never seen the weather change so drastically or so fast. The thunderstorm was horrifying and the pup’s heart was going faster than a jackrabbits. Of course, he would never admit his fear. Slowly, the coyote would start to breathe easier even as part of his mind wondered what would happen next.

His gaze went to the cave, wondering if he should go in there or not. What if a bear or something was in it? Even as he watched the cave something large did appear but not what the black coyote had expected. This white stag was far too large for him to hunt, yet he wanted it. Nico’s bird friends were the normal source of reason with him and they had gotten split up in the storm.
The boy stepped closer, walking near it, the desire to chase it growing, despite the odds. Hopefully, others that had joined with him were stronger and could help. The boy still knew the basics, he just lacked the strength and size of a true hunter. Still, he’d make it work! Whoever he teamed up with wouldn’t find the young coyote completely useless.

The stag went back to the cave and Nico couldn’t resist! He ran after the stag with dreams of a huge kill in his future.


"Niko"

Ajax was further from home than he had ever been, then he should be but in his defence he'd gotten all sorts of turned around during the storm.  Got caught up it in all, moved with the winds and soon found himself in a land unknown to him, sights and smells he didn't dare to take in as he instead sought out shelter. And then he saw it, a creature as white as the moon, its pelt gleaming and bright despite the darkness that settled here. Lingered like it was an inevitability, something creeping and crawling, a force Ajax would never understand. He felt a pull, stronger than gravity as he was on the move once more, joining the chase and hurrying to follow the footsteps of coyote in front of him. Sure, the deer was running further and deeper into the unknown, but there was no time to think let alone realise this was probably a bad idea. That a creature like this still roamed the land for a reason, that hunters far more experienced than himself had not yet caught and claimed it for themselves. Well! Time to show everyone else who was boss, right? W E T

Tor scowled at the whirling clouds overhead that had kept him from completing his journey looking for his scattered siblings, and back down at the hole he had slid headlong into in his rush to find shelter. Now he was muddy, scraped, and bruised both physically and emotionally. Stupid hole. Stupid weather. Stupid siblings wandering all over the fucking place. He glanced around the vegetation-strewn hole in the ground. It wouldn't be a particularly good shelter if that storm finally moved over it, though a couple of puppies seemed to have gotten themselves stuck there too. He ignored them. Just a couple stupid
useless babies. But that cave mouth drew his attention... And the white deer that posed there. Tor locked his eyes on it as it turned and leaped away... Into the cave? Not someplace deer usually went, in his experience. There was probably something wrong with it, like it was sick in the head or something, and it would probably not be safe to eat. But he felt himself drawn to it anyway, and when the stupid puppies went yapping after it, Tor couldn't help himself. He threw himself into the cave with reckless enthusiasm, almost bowling the puppies over in his rush to be the first on its trail.

The white stag disappears into the deep gloom of the cave, leaving only his scent behind to guide you. It is strange. Not like a deer at all but more citrus and ozone, like lightning struck lemons. But you know instinctively that it is the scent you seek. It leads you down, down, down into the dark, until you can no longer see your muzzle before your eyes let alone the white hart, or your allies. Allies? Or opponents? The bell like chime of the white stag's hooves on stone are fading as it flees you. To move forth recklessly risks a plunge into a crevasse or worse, but the hart's scent leads onwards, tantalizing.

Nico recognized the smell of the pirates on the one pup who had also taken off running after the Hart.  The pup was apparently in the same pack as the one his friend Jack was in, the pirates.  An adult charged past both of the two pups, also chasing the Hart.

Nico wasn’t used to hunting in a group and apparently, the adult had no choice but to consider it one.  Nico really wanted to catch it, and before the adult but how?  Certainly, the adult didn’t seem likely to accept the kid's help.  If Nico was thinking logically that would make plenty of sense but this need to hunt killed logic.

“Hey,” Nico said to Ajax, without slowing the pace to look at him, “Let’s work together.  I’ll go for the right leg and you the left when we get closer.  We’ll trip it up to get the neck!”  There were a ton of flaws in the plan but the entire matter had holes in it.  Working together was the only tiny bit of sense he’d come up with.

"Niko"

Ajax stumbled, near losing his footing as the big dire charged past. Intent on doing things his own way. With a little huff, Ajax was quick to right himself and then took a moment to draw in Nico's words. He knew of the coyote pup, vaguely, he was one of Jack's friends and therefore he was a friend of Ajax too! That's how it worked...surely. Eager to work together, Ajax nodded so fierce it made his eyes rattle a little in his head. Two shining blue marbles that somehow held onto their light despite all of the dark. Breaking into a sprint once more, Ajax ran as fast as his legs would allow and dashed after the flashing white hind of the retreating deer. Maybe if they were lucky it would trip on all the stones scattered about the place, or it'd run into a dead end with no where else to go. Either way with all the darkness all around he had to rely on his other senses, namely his hearing as he followed the hasty clopping off hooves and thudding of dire paws. When the time came he'd go left and the coyote would take the right. As for the big guy..well he was older and more experienced, surely he knew what to do as well! W E T

Tor ignored the puppies while they made their silly plans to catch the hart. They weren't going to catch it, whatever they thought. He was. The two of them had no chance of keeping up with a wolf of his stature, nor the experience to track such weird and wily prey. What were they even thinking, trying? He, of course, completely disregarded the fact that he would absolutely have done the same and worse at their age.

The darkness around them was absolute by that time, but Tor kept his nose to the ground on the track itself. Unless the deer ran straight into a crevasse - and he didn't think so, since its hooves still chimed away echoing around them - he should be safe from doing that very thing. He growled to himself as he jogged along through the darkness, and the sound bounced around to mingle with the deer's footsteps and the pattering of puppy paws.

The trail suddenly forks. The scent seems to be going two separate directions, though it seems impossible that the deer could have backtracked and taken a different path before you caught up to him and both trails seem equally new. The trail to the right seems to go down deeper into the caverns. The trail to the left seems to go upwards. Which do you follow?

Nico ran with his ally, ignoring whatever the wolf that had passed them was doing.  Sure, the wolf ahead surely had more experience than either of the two pups but that didn’t matter at the moment.  The only thing that mattered was following the trail the deer had taken, unfortunately along with the scent of the deer was the scent of the other wolf.

Nico slammed on the brakes when there was a split in the path.  No problem, Nico would just follow the scent.  The scent went both directions. Nico circled back and forth between the two paths trying to figure out what hint he could find but nothing was working.

Normal deer wouldn’t go deeper but normal deer didn’t come into places like this.  It was the first moment Nico realized how funny this whole thing was.  Well, he still needed to catch it.  He wasn’t sure which way it went so went with the more practical and turned to the upward trail. “This way!” If his friend trusted him enough they would plow ahead and hopefully run into the giant hart and take it down!

"Niko"

It might have been smart to take the path that twisted upwards, teased a faint glimmer of sunlight, especially since his coyote buddy seemed to want to go that way. Buuut...Ajax wasn't smart and didn't know what was good for him, not now and not ever. He paused for a moment, ears flicking to the sides as he noted a strange pull into the dark, like it called out to him louder than sunlight ever could. The call of the abyss. Shooting the coyote a guilty look-at least he had the mind to feel that way-Ajax kicked off into a sprint once more, convinced this was the right path. That at the end of the tunnel the hart would be cornered and ready for the taking. "Split up! I'll yell real loud if its this way!" He hollered as he went, paws drumming a beat against the ancient stone.

At the fork in the path Tor stopped, snuffling around at the trails in confusion. Experience told him that this was not possible. They'd been moving fast enough that the deer shouldn't have had time to lay a false trail, and besides there were always some differences in the scent to eventually cotton to the right trail. In this case they were identical, like the deer had literally just taken both trails at once. One went up... one went down... He thought harder, trying to pummel his brain into chewing over the problem. If it wasn't so dark, one might have seen smoke coming out of his ears, he thought so hard. Both the puppies passed him, one in either direction, so no matter which direction he went he'd be following one. Damn it. Ugh. Think, Tor, think. A deer seemed more likely to want to escape a cavern than to go deeper. So maybe the coyote baby was accidentally correct. But this deer was already acting weirdly by going into the cave to begin with, so maybe it was trying to lure them into going outside while it escaped into the cave until they left. So maybe the wolf kid was accidentally correct. In the end, it was the desire to not go out where the storm was and risk getting rained on if the eye of the storm had moved away that decided him, and he turned to follow the trail deeper into the cavern.

Though you each went your separate ways down the different passages, within a few steps you find yourself impossibly emerging from the entrance of the cavern together with no sign of the hart anywhere. Not even his scent remains - you can't help but wonder if it had ever existed at all...

Overhead, the storm clouds circling the crater have begun to whirl faster as the winds pick up, sending the branches of trees whipping and flattening grasses. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashes blindingly from the sky to strike the ground with a shocking crack of thunder. When your eyes clear, the storm has stopped completely, the clouds already dispersing into the sunny sky.

A beam of bright sunlight illuminates a statue and altar rising from the ground that had definitely not been there before. A few species of small animals congregated around the statue and altar, clearing away storm debris and trimming grass. Birds in the trees around it that had been absent before tidy leaves away to allow the sun to properly light the statue. Oddly, the creatures tending to the statue go about their business as if nothing had changed at all. Like they, and the statue, had been there for ages and will be there for ages still to come.

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