Avoiding A Cliffside Calamity

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 1, Post Number 18

-Serene Cliff, early afternoon-

Wearing her green-and-gold outfit with Argent Gloves on her hands, well-worn backpack of supplies on her back, and Silver Longsword on her left hip, Leona had finally arrived at Serene Cliff after a good two hours of walking. She stood in a clearing surrounded by trees and felt the wind blow her short blonde hair about. It had been many months since she had last been here.

She had decided against simply flying to Serene Cliff because she wanted to change things up a bit. Leona had also wanted to stop bandits in their tracks before they preyed on travelers passing through here, but she had not encountered any. Either there were no bandits here or they had spotted her early and opted to lay low until she passed by their hiding places. Leona's green-and-gold outfit with Argent Gloves did not exactly blend in with the woods and greenery that was in abundance around Serene Cliff.

Leona had come to Serene Cliff to help a village that was undergoing a recent spate of animal attacks. The village's chief had reported that in the past the local mountain lion, bear, and wolf population had prowled the outskirts of the village and rarely entered it, but for some reason the animals had become more aggressive. Now they routinely entered the village like they owned it and the humans were simply household staff. Tales of bears turning over garbage cans for food and breaking into homes had become commonplace, as had reports of mountain lions attacking and killing dogs if they were left outside after nightfall.

The village chief had reported that seven dogs had been killed and another six so badly mauled that they had to be euthanized. So far no villagers had been harmed by the four-legged intruders, but the chief wanted the attacks stopped before any humans were hurt or killed. He did not care if the offending animals were killed or driven away; he just wanted the incursions stopped.

Leona had brought her Silver Longsword because she needed a weapon that she could use quickly. Kasim's Ram Dao had a heavier blade that put more force behind each swing, but she was not yet skilled enough to use it effectively against fast-moving targets like wolves or mountain lions. While the Silver Longsword did not hit as hard as the ram dao it was faster to swing, a trait that Leona appreciated because if she missed once with the ram dao she might not get another chance before she was pounced on and mauled. The speed of the longsword meant that she could recover from misses more quickly and maybe even get a second chance to attack if her first swing missed. While the prospect of facing Serene Cliff's wild creatures was a fairly daunting one, the Wizard Saint was not working alone on this job.

Her job partner was fellow Silver Wolf member and newly minted Goddess of Ishgar Leila Vergious, who had once been the Saint of Radiance but was now the Goddess of Eden. Leila was as strong as Leona was, so the blonde was in good company. Speaking of company... where was Leila?

[Post Word Count: 542]
[Leona's Word Count: 542/12,500]

Leona was wondering where Leila was when she heard the faint clopping of hooves, which meant that a horse was approaching. The Wizard Saint moved to step out of the rider's way when she felt the magic signature of the rider and noticed that it was as strong as her own. There were only a few mages in Earthland with a signature that strong... Serilda Sinclair, Mythal Ragnos, Ruvel Mizune, and Leila Vergious. Since her partner for this job was Leila, the blonde did not need to strain too much to reach the logical conclusion. She heard the greeting of a female voice and knew that she had made contact with her guildmate.

Leona turned around and found herself looking at the impressive sight of Leila Vergious sitting on horseback and looking dignified like a Goddess of Ishgar. Leila was wearing her black fur-trimmed cloak that was reminiscent of a children's story about a girl with a picnic basket who took a shortcut through wolf-infested woods to get to her grandmother's house. Leila also wore a casual outfit composed of a black shirt and a pleated skirt that could fly up at any moment. Leona took her attention off of the skirt and wondered where Leila had gotten a horse from. The blonde also wondered where the Goddess of Ishgar had learned to ride a horse, but then she remembered that the silver-haired mage had been a mage for far longer than Leona had... it was entirely possible that Leila had picked up the skill on one of her many adventures.

"Hi there, Leila. You're just in time!" Leona greeted the mounted mage with a hand raised in greeting. Leona was glad that her guildmate had shown up when she did. The blonde's feet were more than a little tired and she did not quite feel up to flying the rest of the way... however far that was.

"I've read some of the details, Leila. Most of them dealt with the animals threatening the village. According to the letter, we're gonna be dealing with bears, mountain lions, and wolves that have been going into the village at night. The bears have been rummaging through trash cans and the mountain lions have been killing any pets left outside after dark. I don't know what the wolves have done, though." Leona gave a brief summary of what she knew to Leila. Leona had some gaps in her knowledge... to her regret she had darted out of the guild hall before reading the entire letter, so she knew what the threats were and what they had done to the village but did not know if there was any additional information that the chief had given her.

"I'd better climb on. We don't have very much time to waste." Leona said to Leila before walking to the back of the horse and slowly climbing onto it, being careful not to accidentally poke the horse with the scabbard of the Silver Longsword. Once Leona was firmly seated she looked for a place to hang on but only saw Leila. With no other option, Leona put her hands around Leila's waist.

"I'm ready when you are." Leona informed Leila. The blonde just hoped that the tabloids did not get pictures of the riding arrangement and plaster them all over the news. It would be awkward explaining to the people of Nebdoui that despite what the tabloids said, Leila and Leona were not an item.

[Post Word Count: 605]
[Leona's Word Count: 1,147/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 1,728/25,000]

"Yeah, I don't get why we were hired either, but there's gotta be something else to this. Otherwise they could have hired any mage or group of mages to handle the animals." Leona found herself agreeing with Leila's thoughts as the pair rode down the path and towards the village. Leona hoped that the villagers could fill them in on what was happening besides animals brazenly encroaching on human homes, upsetting trash cans, and killing pets left outside. Maybe someone had observed something like a stranger wandering the town outskirts before the attacks began. She faintly recalled her experience in the forest near Clover Town when dealing with the brainwashed nature mage with Bear Take-Over Magic named Tom.

Tom's friend had noticed strangers visiting Tom at his bedside after the latter had gotten hurt in the course of his job as a forest ranger. As it turned out, the strangers were cultists who had brainwashed Tom into being their servant by promising him a chance to protect the forest forevermore. Tom was the unwitting cause of the goblin and Vulcan being forced out of their forest home and the unlikely pair blockading the railroad tracks leading into Clover Town. Leona's experience had taught her that animals acting so strangely usually had a human cause behind it.

"I agree, Leila. Our first stop should be the village. Once we get there we'll ask some of the locals if they've seen anything out of the ordinary lately. Well, besides wild animals getting bold enough to venture into the village and raid their trash." Leona again voiced her agreement with Leila's suggestion. The silver-haired mage was a source of good ideas and sound logic and had a way of communicating her ideas without making the blonde feel dumb for not reaching the same conclusion sooner. Leona appreciated that diplomatic approach in a way that words could not adequately describe.

A question concerning the location of the village's chief came up. Leona tried to recall the letter's contents and soon recalled a flash of information. According to the letter, the chief lived in a large two-story wooden house, one that was taller than the other wooden homes in the village. A two-story house would make a convenient landmark in the village.

"Yeah, I know where the chief lives. He lives in the only two-story wooden house in the village." Leona told Leila what she remembered from the letter.

"As far as the corpses of the dogs go, I don't know what was done with them because that wasn't mentioned in the letter. Me might want to talk to the chief about it." Leona suggested to Leila, who seemed to have a particular affinity for wildlife because of how she firmly stated that she did not want to kill the wildlife without a very good reason. Leona kept quiet because she had fought wildlife on quite a few jobs and had fought with them before trying other methods of conflict resolution. That was understandable in the case of zombified animals like the Dobermans and crows of Silent Cemetery, but with every other animal her first and only thought was to kill them before they could kill her.

Maybe with Leila's help Leona would not have to kill every last animal to solve the problem. Maybe the pair could find a resolution that would save both the village and the animals. Before they could get any grandiose ideas, they would first need to find the village chief and talk to them.

After that brief exchange the pair continued their horseback ride down the road for at least another half-hour before arriving at their destination. Leona dismounted first and took a look at the village they had been hired to save. It was not the most impressive place in Earthland. The one-story houses looked to be in need of repair but were otherwise structurally sound, but there were no defenses of any kind, not even a simple watchtower. Leona immediately began to look for the distinctive two-story house that belonged to the chief.

[Post Word Count: 709]
[Leona's Word Count: 1,856/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 3,190/25,000]

Leona followed Leila down the "street" of the village and listened to the Goddess of Eden give her opinion about the villagers, who refused to let the recent spate of attacks put a stop to their daily lives. Leona focused on Leila's comment that the people were not paying attention to their surroundings during daylight hours because they thought that the attacks only happened at night. Like she usually did whenever she spoke, Leila raised a good point. The villagers seemed blissfully ignorant of the danger that lurked just beyond the woods surrounding their homes.

"You're right, Leila. But I can see why they're doing this. They can't stay inside and hide in fear. But my opinion's prejudiced and not exactly reliable. I kinda went through the same thing growing up." Leona said to Leila, injecting her own opinion into the conversation while admitting that it was somewhat biased due to her childhood experiences. The blonde had been through this kind of situation herself when she was a child. She too had to live her life while under the threat of animals attacking her village, only the "animals" in her case were other humans who wanted to capture or kill her and everyone else in Nebdoui. Why? Because the village was there and was seen as easy pickings.

Leona learned from an early age to be vigilant day and night while going about her life, and that was before she was taught Wind Strike Magic and learned how to use a sword. Her mother Sophia had once thought about excluding Leona from learning Wind Strike Magic and how to use a sword because she did not want her daughter to grow up to be a fighter, but she eventually decided to teach Leona along with Leonidas. The slavers and raiders would not have spared her just because she was a female or a child, so it was considered prudent for Leona to be able to defend herself. Leona took to the lessons and the rest was history.

"I get what you're saying, Leila. The animals could get bold enough to attack in the daylight too, so they might need to be a little more careful. But that's what we're here for. We're here to solve the problem so they don't have to look over their shoulders all the time." Leona said to Leila as they continued to walk down the stone street in need of maintenance, stepping over a crack that had raised the front part high enough to trip her. She understood what Leila was getting at when she said what she did. The villagers needed to be careful and vigilant until the situation was resolved because thinking that the animal attacks happened only at night could lead to more tragedy when a human was killed by the next incursion. However, Leona had grown looking over her shoulder all the time and it was not something she liked doing.

Leona looked around for the only two-story house in the village but was getting nowhere fast. A two-story house should not have been that hard to spot in this kind of place, but the blonde was just not able to locate the chief's dwelling. After a bit more walking and a lot of feeling dumb, Leona had finally found the house in question. Aside from the variety of flowers in pots hanging around the front and its height, there was not really that much special about the home. At least they were here now.

Leila led the way in and Leona followed. Now was the time to ask the chief for details concerning the incidents.

-Inside the chief's home-

"Hello! It's Leona Jarnefeldt and Leila Vergious! We're here to learn more about the animal attacks!" Leona called out, hearing nothing but her own voice in the home. The first floor was decorated with bookshelves filled with neatly aligned books that were even alphabetized. There was a brick fireplace in the center of the room that was cleaner than an operating room and had three logs that were neatly stacked and ready for use. There was also a small brown leather chair with a wooden magazine rack facing the fireplace... the magazines were neatly arranged and all in alphabetical order. The only thing that was missing was the chief themselves.

Leona happened to look towards the floor and saw a few spots of blood near the doorframe of a hallway. Leona pointed towards the blood and assumed the worst. Maybe one of the animals had been brazen enough to sneak into town and make a meal out of a human. Maybe a mage was using the animals to silence the chief before would-be problem-solvers spoke to the best source of information about the animal incursions.

[Post Word Count: 821]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,677/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 4,762/25,000]

After sighting droplets of blood on the immaculate wooden floor of the house Leona had reason to believe that the worst had happened and the village chief was already dead. She watched and waited as fluffy ears and a fluffy tail appeared on Leila, giving the silver-haired mage the appearance of a part-wolf, part-human being. The blonde watched Leila kneel down and use a finger or two to collect just enough of the blood to bring up to her nose to sniff. Leona did not breathe until her companion informed her of the blood's source.

It was from a goose.

Leona exhaled in relief. So the chief was not dead after all, but only preparing a midday meal. The Wizard Saint was glad that she was still in time to save lives instead of arriving to find corpses like she had in Desierto during the trip to the iron mine with her brother Leonidas. Then Leona thought about the current situation and found a certain amount of dark comedy in it.

She could save every village in Earthland but her own.

Without access to the iron mine Nebdoui was slowly but surely starting to fall apart. Those residents of the village who had not been killed or carried off into slavery were leaving to take their chances in the Tri-Council Cities, leaving the village with fewer and fewer people to defend it from increasingly common raider and slaver attacks. Nebdoui's allies had their own troubles to deal with, so they could not afford to spare men to go defend Nebdoui. Leona would have to work a lot of overtime to salvage the situation... if it was not already too far gone to be salvaged.

Leona's thoughts of home were interrupted by the chief stepping out from around the corner and imploring the two mages to wait a few moments while he finished preparing the goose that would be his meal. Seeing the bloody knife and the beheaded goose being held by its feet assured the Wizard Saint that he had not fallen victim to an animal that had gotten into his house. Now that his survival was confirmed beyond all doubt, Leona would wait until the goose was cooked before speaking to him.

"When he gets back, I'll do the talking, Leila." Leona politely said to the Goddess of Eden. It was not that Leona did not trust Leila with the task of engaging the chief in conversation. Leila had a lot more confidence and a lot more charisma in a single strand of silver hair than Leona had in her entire body. It was that Leona needed to improve her social skills and perform her role as Guild Mistress, Silver Wolf's public face and its leader.

Leona heard the sound of intermittent but forceful chopping on wood floating from the kitchen as the goose was being prepared. She waited in tense silence until it stopped and the sound of flowing water took up the space. Moments later the chief stepped out of the kitchen and engaged them in conversation.

"when I sent out the call for help, I never thought that a Wizard Saint and a Goddess of Ishgar would answer it. I'm Reginald. It's an honor to meet you both." The chief greeted them. He was a middle-aged man of average build who wore a green long-sleeved shirt and brown pants with brown shoes. He was lacking in hair around the top of his head, presumably from stress-induced problems.

"We read the job notice and read where you're having problems with animals encroaching on village. We also read that they had begun killing any pets left outdoors after dark." Leona stated. The man nodded.

"Yes. At first it was nothing major. It was small-time mischief like bears and raccoons rummaging through household garbage after knocking over the trashcan or a pack of wolves stalking through the streets while chasing after a deer. They were so timid that even a pet cat could chase them away. But a few weeks ago they got aggressive. A lot more aggressive." Reginald recounted. Leona stood in silence for a few moments and the chief soon resumed his story.

"It started one night when a bear knocked over a trashcan and began pawing through it. A man sent his dog to chase it away, but the bear turned on the dog and killed it by biting clean through its skull. After that the interlopers began to kill anything outside after dark. A pack of wolves even chased a local boy who had spent too much time in the forest searching for his missing dog. Thankfully the town guard gathered in time to run them off, but now the mountain lions have come out to play. We can't fight mountain lions, not at night." Reginald explained further.

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary before the animal intrusions turned serious? Did you notice any strange people wandering on the outskirts of the village? Or did you banish someone from the village for a crime?" Leona asked him. Reginald rubbed the back of his head while looking at her. He then jolted when he realized something.

"Actually, yes. There was a strange robed man spotted wandering the outskirts of town every time before the bears and mountain lions came into town. He'd stand and glare at the village, then disappear back into the woods when the animals showed up. He wore a black robe and had sickly green glowing eyes and looked to be kinda slender, but that's all I can tell you. No one's brave enough to go looking for the person." Reginald told them what little he knew about the stranger. Leona was not sure if the stranger was a nature mage with a grudge against the village or something more sinister. Maybe the mystery person was even a supernatural entity.

[Post Word Count: 1,024]
[Leona's Word Count: 3,701/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 6,558/25,000]