Ovan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guiltyunion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
forestofpain2022-04-15 09:25 pm
guiltyunion) wrote in forestofpain2022-04-15 09:25 pm
(no subject)
[Most tales of grand adventures begin with a "Once upon a time..." But there's no need for that here. Since time immemorial, their world has always been The World. It had the average amount of magic and monsters in it, with the average sort of quests and danger to accompany it. And honestly? That average was quite agreeable to Ovan.
He found that being an adventurer came as naturally as breathing. Taking on quests, completing them, then drifting on to the next town with the money he earned and repeating was nearly soothing in its ease. The type of quests Ovan favored (of the killing monsters and guiding a weary or lost traveler to a town waiting for them) asked for little in the way of connection, and the information exchanged between requester and adventurer nearly always shook out in his favor. The customer discovered next to nothing about him -- he considered it a rare occurrence if they bothered to ask his name at all -- and more often than not, he walked away with a firmer idea of what he was seeking was. And enough money to sleep and get a hot meal where he ended up next, too.
The most recent one he'd accepted was cut from the same cloth as all the others. Proceed into local forest, lay waste to what lurked there, come back in one piece to get paid. It wasn't until after he'd already made preparations to head out that the commissioner offhandedly mentioned the person she sent along before him. Ovan -- miraculously, in his opinion -- managed to contain himself to only mild surprise. It was only a nest of about fifty monsters. Nothing that someone as well traveled as him or his mysterious companion couldn't handle if they had similar levels of experience.
Well, that was until he saw what he had to take on. Not only was the nest well guarded -- surrounded by steep hills on three sides with a thorny path leading up to it -- the monsters that came out of it were huge, even taller than he was. This might actually be a job for three or four adventurers, not two. She was almost certainly trying to shortchange the two of them. If Ovan had gone ahead first, he would have come back and declined it... But even he wasn't so heartless as to leave another adventurer in the lurch.
Still, though...]
This is quite a predicament.
[Ovan said quietly. And perhaps that was an understatement -- the quality of his partner might make things even worse. ... Where was the other person she'd sent before him, anyway? Surely they'd arrived here by now...]
He found that being an adventurer came as naturally as breathing. Taking on quests, completing them, then drifting on to the next town with the money he earned and repeating was nearly soothing in its ease. The type of quests Ovan favored (of the killing monsters and guiding a weary or lost traveler to a town waiting for them) asked for little in the way of connection, and the information exchanged between requester and adventurer nearly always shook out in his favor. The customer discovered next to nothing about him -- he considered it a rare occurrence if they bothered to ask his name at all -- and more often than not, he walked away with a firmer idea of what he was seeking was. And enough money to sleep and get a hot meal where he ended up next, too.
The most recent one he'd accepted was cut from the same cloth as all the others. Proceed into local forest, lay waste to what lurked there, come back in one piece to get paid. It wasn't until after he'd already made preparations to head out that the commissioner offhandedly mentioned the person she sent along before him. Ovan -- miraculously, in his opinion -- managed to contain himself to only mild surprise. It was only a nest of about fifty monsters. Nothing that someone as well traveled as him or his mysterious companion couldn't handle if they had similar levels of experience.
Well, that was until he saw what he had to take on. Not only was the nest well guarded -- surrounded by steep hills on three sides with a thorny path leading up to it -- the monsters that came out of it were huge, even taller than he was. This might actually be a job for three or four adventurers, not two. She was almost certainly trying to shortchange the two of them. If Ovan had gone ahead first, he would have come back and declined it... But even he wasn't so heartless as to leave another adventurer in the lurch.
Still, though...]
This is quite a predicament.
[Ovan said quietly. And perhaps that was an understatement -- the quality of his partner might make things even worse. ... Where was the other person she'd sent before him, anyway? Surely they'd arrived here by now...]