Not You Again!

In all the time Hania and his twin brother had been in Fiore not once had they taken the time to go to Talonia, he wish he could say this was a surprising but he really couldn't. Given their heritage they were feared when their secret got out, and unfortunately for them it always got found out eventually, when it did they got chased out of what was their home by the very people that had been their friends for the time they had been there without issue. They didn't see the people they were after the secret was revealed, they just saw demons, evil creatures without a spec of good in them apparently. They couldn't help what they had been born, they couldn't help how they originally survived given where they were seemingly abandoned as newborns. Sin after all wasn't the most forgiving place, only the strong survived and they done it by standing on the backs of the weak to take down those who were stronger, but it was more than brute strength needed when moving forward, a person had do be cunning, cold and calculating. To be honest he was pretty sure that he and his twin were sociopaths because of this but still they tried to move away from a path that seemed to be chosen for them since birth. They didn't want to harm people, in fact when they came to Fiore he had bound all of his offensive magic. Sure, this made him weaker when it came to fighting but he was sick of doing harm and vowed not to do it any longer if he could help it. He knew that trying to go through life without doing harm was just a pipe dream, if he thought like that then he would be the one stood on and he was a doormat for no one. He fought, when needed but tried to hold back when it came to deadly force, if he really gave into those urges he would be the monster they feared he was in the first place. He was better than that and he knew it.

It had been snowing in the area, he could feel it with just how crisp and clean the air felt, then again there was also excitement in the air as he walked into the small town. Children were building snowmen, having snowball fights, playing on sleds and there was a few even making snow angels on the ground. He couldn't help feel a burst of their happiness and excitement as be walked past them, he was of course careful not to go to close to the snowball war going on. As nice as it was to see, he really didn't want to take part, even a lightly thrown snowball could do some real damage to a child and he didn't want to be responsible for that, especially this time of year. No one wanted to spend christmas in hospital he was sure and if he got to rough? Well, he didn't want to think about that. Even if he wasn't a Rune Knight he didn't want to cause harm and it showed in his body language. As he walked down the streets he noticed the smell of spiced cookies, hot coco, chestnuts and other seasonal delights. "Perhaps while I'm here I should get some christmas shopping done." he said to himself, then again he had only really spent a lot of time with his twin brother and he was happy that way. Then again, he thought he may as well try and be social with others and so get some gifts for others in the Rune Knights and then dreaded just how he was going to get it all back to Era, he also hoped that the shops offered gift wrapping as well seeing as he would hate for people to see their potential gifts ahead of time. He stopped hearing people singing in the square, they were dressed in traditional clothing and seemed to be collecting for the less fortunate during the season of giving, it was clear however they were enjoying themselves. Moving forward he placed some jewel into their pot before heading off to do what he was now intending to do.

Looking around as he continued to walk down the street, it was then he realised amongst the seasonal reds and greens he seemed out of place with his black semi casual trousers, white shirt opened a little at the top black tie which was extremely loose and black blazer. With how young he looked, he could have passed as a collage or university student that just got released for the semester. He watched as there was a person dressed as santa in his red and white trimmed suit, their was a sleigh and even the correct number of reindeer. This little town seemed to go all out for this time of year and he guessed they done this because in a place like this, everyone knew everyone and they wanted it to be magical for the children. Upon taking a second look at the santa he could tell that the bright white beard was real, more so as a little boy around the age of three or four tugged on it. The fat jolly gent let out a 'ho ho ho' and didn't show any issue with being harmed even though it may have been little by the child. He guessed that he trained for months for anything that may come his way from the children that sat on his lap, he wondered if their was a krampus running around since there was a beloved santa here. He chuckled at the thought of a man taking on the mythical monsters role and chasing naughty boys and girls around the town, it actually seemed like it be a very fun game of hide and seek. Once again he walked down the street in a world of his own, listening to the joy and laughter around him and walked aimlessly towards where he could get a hot drink only to bump into someone smaller than himself bringing him back into the real world. "My apologies miss." he said rubbing the back of his head a goofy smile on his face. He was unsure if he had spilled her drink but blinked as he noticed how she was dressed and double blinked unsure how to take the sexy looking Misses Clause, he couldn't help but wonder if the woman was cold. "Are you not cold dressed like that?" he finally asked the woman previously who seemed annoyed shook her head and started to play with her auburn hair "Not really, I'm an ice make wizard." she said to him, if he didn't know any better he'd believe that she was going to attempt to flirt with him. He wasn't really interested "I'm once again sorry for what happened." with that he turned his attention to the table filled with tasting chocolate.

The woman continued to look to him and attempted to talk to him as much as he was wanting to be polite he was glad when she was finally called away for hosting a competition. He had taken notice of course of her enticing shimmering emerald eyes and how her body looked but wished he wished she would be more covered due to it being so cold, he noticed she was wearing a beautiful bracelet and ring set. It was clear to him she was cherished by her family as if she had a boyfriend she would have been giving the come hither cutsie vibe she had been given him. Three cups with a marker card was given to him "Please taste these hot chocolates, rate them from best to worst and for your help you can get a free one." A woman said Hania nodded and picked up the first one and took a few small sips. It was a cinnamon spiced hot chocolate and even had some cinnamon sticking out, he enjoyed that taste a great deal. The second one was a white a hot chocolate, it had marshmallows and a little whipped cream when he took a sip he could taste a subtle taste of peppermint. The third had a little gingerbread man sitting on the side of the cup and tasted of it too, for him this was little overwhelming in flavour. When he tasted them all he marked down what he liked to what he disliked and handed it back to the woman "Thank you for doing that. Now which would you like?" the woman asked her voice happy and cheery. Hania smiled and had a clear winner in his mind.

He looked to the woman "Could I get a cinnamon spiced hot chocolate please, without any toppings but a cinnamon stick inside." he asked the woman "Sure hun, just put a few jewel in the collection pot if you feel like it." the young red head said in return placing some jewel in the pot, he looked at the the pot to see what was being collected for and decided that he would put some jewel inside as it was for a good cause in his mind. Turns out it was a collection to get christmas presents for the children in the local hospital, he moved into his pocket and pulled out some more putting it into the pot deciding it was also the season of giving and he had more than enough to give. He would hate to be stuck in a hospital on his own this time of year especially knowing what was going on outside of it due to all the music and smells. It wouldn't be to long until he was given his drink, blowing a few times he took a sip before looking at the woman once more "Are there more games and contests here?" He could that while he went shopping, it would be a great day out he supposed. Then again he turned around watching guards of the place seemingly run to the city gates and wondered what the hell was going on. He knew at the end of the day he knew the guards could manage the threat on their own but still moved quickly to follow he was a Rune Knight after all and it was his duty to help when he could. 'So much for an easy day of shopping.' He thought to himself with a groan

Word Count: 1,752
~~Event Word Count Complete. Will Continue as a Job.~~
Additional word count added to next post: 252
@Aliarey Casady @Diana Winchester

Activities Done:
Hot Chocolate Tasting

Ah, Talonia. A town known for all the guildless mages that liked to travel through and stay there for whatever reason. Everyone needed some place to call home, perhaps, and the guildless did tend to lack those comfy guild halls scattered throughout Fiore and beyond. At one point even Alia had stayed in that same town more often than not. It was a place she always went back to eventually, no matter how long she had been away for whatever job came next during her goal of collecting jewels. A goal that really never came to an end. Though, her time in Talonia had. It had been quite some time since she visited the place, and she had no intentions on staying. Ha, and no. It wasn't because she had joined the housing guilds tended to offer. The woman was still very much still stubborn in that regard. She had no need for a guild in the past and still didn't. Other things had just come up that made her lifestyle change just a bit. The place she currently called home had just switched locations, and that was all.

So, what brought her to Talonia now? Uh.... well she was sure to remember what it was eventually. It was probably something that she was asked to do by that quirky professor she knew or even Trey, the guy that could be considered as some adopted brother if she considered him as a normal human being. Either way, it was something they considered important, and at one point she did as well since she got off her butt and made it all the way to the town. It's just that there was a festival going on and well, that's pretty much where the excuse ends. The blonde got distracted immediately, and veered her steps towards the fun instead of work.

Alia had been at the festival for a very lengthy period of time by this point now. The cold weather didn't seem to bother her much. Her choice of attire for the day was quite suitable. The skirts and dresses were switched out for actual pants, and underneath the winter jacket was a thick enough long sleeve shirt. Add in the typical winter accessories of a winter hat, gloves, boots, and a scarf, Alia was considered all set to spend the entire day at the festival. Provided she kept going in and taking all of the hot chocolate that was around, of course. That helped immensely. Though, by the time a rather somewhat familiar individual made his way to the hot chocolate taste testing area, Alia was already gone. Her temporary boost of warmth had already been taken, and now she was elsewhere about to cause some trouble.

"All right, you little monsters. You're all going down!"

Aliarey was taking cover behind a large mound of snow. She was in the middle of a super important and dangerous war. A snowball war. There were many sides to this battle, all of them leaderless and ready to betray each other for the sake of being the last one left standing. The last one left alive. For surely a snowball war was a gruesome fight to the death. There were no allies here. No temporary bonds to be made for a common goal. There could only be one winner, and no one was taking prisoners. Everyone had to go, and everyone had their guns loaded to see it through. Was this probably being taken too seriously? Probably, but that's what happens when playing around with some kids that wanted to play pretend. Alia would just blame it all on those magazines of famous mages and wizards later. For now, she was more interested in knocking all those kids down with a few mini snowballs from her gun. If that's what it could be called. Truthfully, she had seen paintball guns better designed.

While hiding, Alia heard the kids screaming and shouting about the wandering snowmen that were also a part of the battle. The snow enemies had been a part of a contest earlier and they had now been enchanted to take part in their own destruction by being a part of the chaos in the snow war arena. She heard some of the grenades they were all given go off, ones that were harmless to everything but snowmen. That was her chance. With the distraction of the snowmen ambush she could get some hits in and eliminate some of those rascals. Winning the super serious snow war of super seriousness was within her grasp!

Leaping from behind the snow mound, the gunner mage started to shoot as she ran towards the next cover point. Mini balls of snow flew across the arena, and the flashes of the heat grenades kept going off to make a scene that looked way more chaotic than it actually was. As she ducked under the snowballs aimed at her and skidded into the next point of cover, Alia noted that she had taken out three of those kids. There were still a few more to go. "Are we allowed to reload these things?" The blonde asked herself while looking down at the "weapon" she held. Did it even have an ammo amount or did it just generate more magically? These were all very important questions. It was going to suck big time if she was out in the open and had an empty gun after trying to fire at the last kid standing there. "Hmmm," she shrugged and decided not to worry about it. She could let the kids take each other out. Surely there was enough ammo left in there to take out one kid after they finished each other off.

So the woman stayed there for a few moments and listened to everything going on around her. She did end up having to take two snowmen out with heat grenades when they noticed her and waltzed on over, but as long as it didn't waste her snowball ammo she was content with that distraction. Soon after, it became clear based on the announcements that it was just her and one kid left. Perfect. Aliarey smirked. It was now time to win!

That was when she saw it. A weird type of scorpion that was moving past her feet. It was ignoring her and going along its merry little way but... uh... that was a bit odd. When did scorpions become part of this way?  Did they enter some kind of final challenge stage now that there were only two remaining contestants? "Uhhh..." She arched a brow at first, confused and suspicious of the thing. Then she cringed and backed away when more came into the picture. "Oh, terrific." She shot at one with the snowball gun. Not much happened, of course, aside from the thing now flailing, having become annoyed at being shot by a snowy projectile. Alia stomped on it, crushing it. "Yeah, I already hate bees. I'm not about to get stung by a scorpion too."

She moved out of that point of cover and into the "warzone." "Eh?!" Now when the hell did that happen?! The whole arena was being taken over by mutated ice scorpions! Aliarey was prepared to ditch right then and there because no war was worth having her ass get stung by one of those things. Unfortunately, the last kid was still there too, and was getting surrounded. "Aw hell, I thought I was done with good deeds today," she commented aloud while summoning forth her jetpack from her requip storage space. The energy from the jetpack lifted her off the ground and quickened her speed to be just enough for her to reach and snatch the kid up before he became the target of a scorpion pinching party.

Once she got him safely to the outside edge of the snowball war arena, Alia called up one of her turret discs, her Flame Turret Disc to be specific. The disc glowed after landing on the snow of the area, and soon it transformed into the turret. Flames spread throughout the entire arena, and once the fire had died down it was clear that the scorpion infestation had been taken care of. The ones in the arena anyway. Hopefully there weren't anymore of those.

There was some loud commotion going on over at the gates. Aliarey turned to look in that direction to see people running over there, guards especially. Common people were even told to remain there at the festival grounds and stay away from the gates. "Now what is going on over there? Better be no more scorpions! Right, kid?" Her blue eyes looked down at the kid, who's head she was patting and expecting him to agree with her. That is, until he shot her in the face with the snowball gun. For a moment she was stunned and speechless. It quickly wore off as soon as her mouth remembered how to move. "Kid, I just saved you! What the heck?!"

"I win!" The kid took off, laughing and enjoying his moment of being the "winner."

"Pretty sure no one won since we're not even in the arena anymore..." Alia said, though the kid was too busy laughing and jumping for joy to hear her statement. With the way he was acting there may as well have been no scorpions at all. Though one thing still was true. Helping someone out in the middle of a "war" ruined her winning chances. That little brat. Maybe she would go check out what was going on over at the gates now that, that was all over.

WC: 1608
1500 WC for Event Completed
New WC: 108

Activities Done:
Hot Chocolate (1 Token)
Snowball War (4 Tokens)
5 Token Objective Complete

Monsters:
Scorpions
Ice Elementals
Snow Brute
Yeti

-Outskirts of Talonia, 500 meters from the town-

Clad in white winter camouflage clothing with a white face wrap because it was best suited for cold weather, Diana strolled on a path next to the snow-covered woods towards the city known throughout Earthland as the "home of the guildless." Diana had briefly considered making a place for herself there before she received the invitation to join her current guild. Now that she was part of Hidden Blades she was glad that she had stayed away from Talonia because there was no evidence of her presence for the authorities or their countless hired helpers to trace back to her. Diana continued to walk towards the city until out of some nearby woods came a trio of humanoid shapes made out of ice crystals. They did not look like they wanted to build a snowman or to sing carols.

Diana, not waiting for them to start slinging Ice spells in her direction, pointed her index and middle fingers at the one on the left and charged for a Spirit Drain Beam. Dodging an ice spear flung at her head, Diana ducked and fired a Spirit Drain Beam that hit it in center mass and shattered it. The other two ice creatures floated back about fifty meters before starting to fling ice spears at their enemy. Diana brought out her Suppressed Assault Rifle and aimed carefully at the ice creature to her left before opening fire on full-auto. She held down the trigger and each shot that landed chipped away at the beast's torso but did not destroy it... another spell would be needed to break the ice, which meant that the huntress would have to close in to finish the job.

Dropping her weapon and using her Reaper's Sprint to quickly and quietly close the distance, Diana appeared in front of the enemy and punched the cracked ice beast in the torso with a Spirit Drain Punch. Her fist punched through the weakened torso and shattered it completely, leaving only one more active enemy to oppose her. She turned right just in time for an ice spear to whiz just above her left shoulder. She spotted the thrower and focused pale blue magic into her right fist. Once the spell was ready Diana punched towards the target and fired a Spirit Drain Bolt that hit the enemy in the torso.

It shattered completely, leaving Diana in command of the area. The huntress calmly picked up her Suppressed Assault Rifle and was about to dispel it when a giant creature that looked like someone had jammed icicles into an oversized circular base for a snowman before giving it tree stumps for legs charged out of nowhere right towards her. Diana took a deep breath of cold air. She had traveled to Talonia to do something other than kill something or someone and now she was in a fight for her life. It figured... death never took a holiday and it seemed like the Child Of Death would not get one either.

Diana raised her weapon to her shoulder and fired on full-auto, hitting the giant snow beast but not doing any appreciable harm to it. It stopped just short of her and raised its giant fists into the air, joining them together for an axhandle smash that would have turned the huntress to red paste if she had not jumped back to avoid the powerful attack that kicked up an impressive cloud of snow where it hit. Diana realized that her rifle was worthless against something made of snow, so she cast it aside and tried to think of another way to kill it before it could do the same to her. It swung its fists wildly in her direction as Diana charged her right fist for another Spirit Drain Bolt.

Her big-ticket spells were taxing on her magic reserves, but Diana simply could not afford to take a hit from the lumbering beast. Her right fist glowed with unnatural blue energy and she held onto the spell until she could get some clearance to cast it without risking a fist to the body that would break her bones. She got that clearance after running for about 100 meters away from Talonia's outskirts.

The beast was doing its best to chase her but was a bit too slow. Diana punched towards it and released the fist-sized bolt of death. The Spirit Drain Bolt hit it in the face and made it pause in place for a moment before toppling forward and crashing to the snow, kicking up an even larger cloud of snow than slamming its fists had churned up. Diana exhaled and picked up her rifle but kept it on hand because she thought she had heard the cracking of falling trees from the nearby woods. The huntress' suspicion was confirmed when a giant bipedal beast with curled horns that were not as tightly wound as a ram's pushed two trees aside, stepped between them, and roared in her direction.

Diana turned to face the new threat and was momentarily startled when she saw it. Was it a... yeti? She had thought that they were just a myth, something that was a case of mistaken identity by half-frozen travelers who had gotten lost and who had saw things in a cold-induced delirium. The huntress quickly concluded that yetis were very much real... so was the tree it had picked up and chucked at her like a thick arboreal javelin!

Diana turned on her heels and sprinted away before she could be flattened beneath the flying tree. Once she was safely away from the impact site she turned to aim at the yeti and was surprised when it was already halfway to her by the time she could put the stock against her right shoulder. She held down the trigger and aimed the best she could given how deceptively fast the yeti was. The beast barreled towards her without being slowed in the slightest; her shots drew blood but only seemed to piss it off because it stopped in front of her and reached out to seize her by the waist.

Diana barely dodged the grab by jumping back and it simply stepped forward, grabbing her around the waist with its beefy left hand. It roared and began slamming Diana into the snow with its left hand. The huntress withstood two impacts before losing her grip on her weapon and dropping it with the third impact. The yeti grabbed the weapon by the barrel and flung it into the woods, then turned its attention back to the blonde trapped within its grasp.

It grabbed her in both hands and drew her in for a bite that could take her head off. Diana quickly brought out her Suppressed Submachine Gun and clutched it in her right hand. She held the weapon steady and fired into its chest on full-auto; shot after shot went in until the yeti gave up on trying to bite her and just threw her to the ground thirty meters away. Diana landed with a THUD and dropped her weapon, but she had bigger problems because the mythical beast still wanted a piece of her.

Not having time to grab her submachine gun, Diana instead charged her right hand with magic for her most powerful spell. She waited until it got within arm's reach, then formed her right hand for a chop and chopped through its waist with her glowing right hand. Her hand passed through it and the yeti roared in pain, then stumbled backwards a good fifteen meters. This gave the huntress enough time to grab her submachine gun and aim it in case it was still spoiling for a fight.

The yeti recovered and charged one last time, determined to take the huntress with it or die trying. Diana obliged and stood her ground, firing into its torso as it closed the gap. It swatted at her with its left hand and sent Diana flying with a powerful hit. She landed some thirty meters away and dropped her weapon, rolling to a stop after about five meters. Diana was hurting, but the yeti had collapsed onto its knees and was on its last legs.

Diana somehow found the energy to stand up and faced the yeti that had been her toughest quarry to date. Its eyes met hers for a moment before it fell to the snow, never to rise again. Diana kept her distance for a good ten minutes because she did not know if its was truly dead, so she scanned it with her infrared vision mode. It did not show a heat signature, but she did not know whether that was due to it having finally succumbed to its wounds or because its species did not have a heat signature so that it could blend in with snowy environments. In either case Diana kept her distance so that she could recover from the jarring hit she had taken.

-Thirty minutes later-

After taking a half-hour to recover and watching the beast the entire time, Diana concluded that it was well and truly dead and dispelled her Suppressed Submachine Gun before walking towards the woods to claim her Suppressed Assault Rifle. She slogged through the snow and eventually found it lying half-buried in the snow near the base of a tree. Diana recovered it and dispelled it, then slogged back to the corpse of the yeti. Diana knew that she should probably get going before it was too late to participate in Talonia's festivities, but part of her wanted a trophy from the dead yeti. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for her and she did not want to lose the chance to own part of a yeti.

However, she did not have a knife with her because carrying a physical weapon could hand her enemies a piece of evidence to use to find her. All it would take for her double life to collapse was one piece of evidence that could be traced back to her. Diana looked at the yeti corpse and wondered what to do. Suddenly a band of local hunters in winter wear with shotguns and scoped rifles walked up to her.

"Did... did you kill... that yeti? By yourself?" Their leader, a black-beared man wearing a brown fur hat and armed with a pump-action shotgun, asked her, pointing to the beast lying just to the right of her.

"Yes." Diana answered laconically. The leader momentarily recoiled in surprise when he learned that he was talking to a woman but soon recovered.

"You're a pretty good hunter if you pulled that off, Miss. A lot of hunters want to bag a yeti. Many spend their entire lives hunting for one and never find it. Those who do find it tend to die. But you... you survived and killed one all by yourself!" He praised Diana's abilities. Diana looked at his waist and found that he wore a knife on his right side.

"Do you mind if I borrow your knife to take a souvenir from the yeti?" Diana requested of the man.

[Post Word Count: 1,860/1,500]
The 1,500-word requirement for the event has been met.
[New Word Count: 360]

Diana has defeated the Ice Elementals, the Snow Brute, and the Yeti.