Dead man walking

Job info:

When Caelestis had first received the letter, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. As far as he knew, he hadn’t any old friends who’d get into this kind of trouble, so how on earth had someone sent this letter to him? The whole situation was quite odd, leaving him to wonder who the letter was actually intended for. Curiousity had taken over him at the thought of finding out, to the point where he’d ended up setting out to find the place mentioned in the letter anyways. Surely that wouldn’t be bad of him, right? The person sounded like they could use some help anyways.

The whole area was creepy, and smelled like rot to his oversensitive slayer’s nose. Decay and death seemed to be a permanent stench in the air here, noticeable for even a human. He should’ve brought a mask or something, the stink was absolutely horrid. He didn’t exactly have long to dwell on that fact though, something launching out of the bushes at him in a fury. He’d heard it shuffling around, but ignored it at the time. Now, he had no choice. Conjuring up the wind bow with a thought, he took aim and loosed the arrow towards the creature, which looked to be... wait, was that a dead dog?

Spells Used:

MP: 180/200
HP: 200/200
WC: 217/1000

Jasper stood before the decrepit cabin, wondering idly if he had made a mistake in coming here. The cabin looked as though it hadn’t been used in ages, though as far as Jasper could tell this was the place the map had marked out. He hadn’t been out this way before, so he could only assume it was from either a contact he had made on his other travels through Earthland… or a wrongly delivered letter. If he had to be honest with himself, he felt he may have wasted his time bothering to come here at all. Who knew how long ago that letter had been sent, if it were meant to be delivered to him at all? To top it all off, aside from a few crows he could see in the barren trees overhead he hadn’t seen much in terms of signs of life at all in the surrounding area. It all seemed to have been dying out for some time before he had ever arrived… it was almost eerily silent. Aside from the birds that seemed to be eyeing him, Jasper felt oddly alone.

Jasper took another long drag of his cigarette, the ember blazing brilliantly against the lifeless backdrop of his surroundings, and made ready to at least check out the cabin after coming all this way before a sudden scuffle some distance behind him broke the silence. The crimson haired mage heard the guttural barking of a possibly rabid dog, before a sudden whistle interrupted it and punctuated the confrontation with a sudden whine from what Jasper could only assume was the animal in question. To Jasper's ears though, it sounded wrong somehow… he couldn’t put his finger on it but something definitely sounded off about the bark and subsequent whine. Maybe it was just his surroundings getting to him though. This whole place seemed wrong, and perhaps the sudden break in the silence was what made it all seem off.

Jasper turned from the door to the cabin and headed off at a run towards the noise regardless. His gut was telling him there was definitely something wrong here, and after seeing naught but birds on his way into this place at least seeing whatever made the commotion might shed some light on what was going on here. Who knows, maybe whatever made the whistling sound came from the person who sent him the letter in the first place?

Jasper winded his way through the trees quickly, and soon came upon the source of the commotion in the otherwise deadly silence of the dead forest. Closest to him stood what looked to be the rotting corpse of a dog. The fur on it was matted, bloodied, and torn revealing huge swaths of the muscle and bone that looked even at a glance to be old and rotting. Even from here, Jasper could make out little white shapes wriggling around in what was left of the meat of the dog, likely maggots that had infested this poor mutt. If the thing hadn’t been wriggling itself, as though trying and failing to get its own feet under it while it growled viciously, Jasper may have even mistaken it for being nothing but a corpse.

Across from the rotting beast stood a young man who looked to be in his teens, black haired and sporting a blue-green outfit. Judging from the lack of armour, Jasper quickly inferred that this young man was likely a mage of some sort… and unless Jasper was mistaken, likely the source of the whistling sound he had heard but a moment prior. Unless Jasper missed yet a third entity hiding somewhere in these woods on the way, of course. Jasper didn't care to wait to see if this young mage could handle himself though, based purely on what he could tell of the young man's build at a glance he didn't think the young man would handle the rotten mutt well if it managed to get back to its feet and got in close.
Flames coalesced on Jasper’s body, quickly flaring up and out as it seemed to take on the form of a phoenix for the briefest of moments. Then an ear piercing screech filled the air as that same phoenix formed of flame dove forward in tandem with Jackal rushing forward himself towards the undead dog to deliver a shattering kick to the prone beast. It hadn’t even had time to turn to the new threat that was Jasper before being both engulfed in flame and launched into the air directly into a nearby tree. On impact with the tree, the beast didn’t hold up in the least as it literally splattered into two flaming halves and a torrent of undead viscera across the trunk of the tree.

“Umm… hey, you alright kid?” Jasper asked sheepishly, scratching the back of his head and turning to the young mage who had been facing down the undead beast. He hoped he hadn’t traumatised the poor guy… all he had thought about in the moment was that someone needed saving and hadn’t given any thought to the opponent and what might actually be needed. He realized full well now, when it was too late, that what he had done had been overkill to say the least.

Spells Used wrote:
Name: Predatory Rush
Rank: B
MP Cost: 40 MP
Category: Offensive
Type: Burst
Damage: 80HP
Range: 50 Meters
Speed: 50 Meters Per Second
Duration: 1 post
Downside:
Description: Jaspers flames flare up around his body, and for a brief moment the colese into the form of a phoenix. The phoenix lets out a piercing screech as it rises into the air, before diving towards the target at high speeds in tandem with Jasper rushing forwards. This attack scorches the ground between Jasper and his intended target before both Jasper and the flames collide with them.

HP: 500/500
MP: 360/400 (-40 For spell/regain 20 per turn starting next post)

Word Count: 885
Personal Word Count: 885
Total Word Count:1002/1000

An ear-piercing screech as a man came out of seemingly nowhere, wreathed in flames, was enough to have Cael glaring hard. If there were other creatures like the dog out here, they’d definitely heard that. It was enough to hurt his ears, not that that was hard with heightened senses. But it still hurt a good deal. Really, did this man have to be so loud? And to call him a kid at that, like he was some incompetent civilian child! Hmph, he was a lot stronger than he looked.

“I’m fine. But did you have to be so loud? Every enemy within miles is no doubt converging on this spot.” he said, voice cold as he addressed the older. “I had that, you know. It was stunned and my wind magic won’t allow for it to get close.” Focusing his glare properly on the other guy, he noted the red hair and tall stature that was very opposite of him. And very distinctive in the desolate landscape around them. Ah well, at least it wouldn’t be Cael who’d be targeted first.

Looking around to make sure there were no enemies to take care of first, Cael moved to dash towards the cabin. The smell of rot was far stronger in that direction, and the person who’d sent that letter needed to be found. Not bothering to spare the man a second glance, he sprinted surpringly quickly in the direction of the cabin. He would complete this job with as little interference as possible, he could only hope the man left him alone.

Unfortunately, the dead had definitely heard the man’s flaming attack, and were headed directly towards Caelestis as he skidded to a halt. Wrinkling his nose in disgust as the stench of death grew ever stronger, Cael sighed and prepared his strongest attack. Wind would gather in his mouth, his cheeks puffing out comically, before being expelled in a loud, whistling roar towards what looked like a pair of ghosts and a few walking human corpses. The winds would rip at their frail bodies, tossing them backwards several meters and sending little bits of rotting flesh flying.

Spell Used:

HP: 200/200
MP: 150/200
WC: 359
Personal WC: 576

Jasper blinked, a bit shocked at the rudeness of the young mage. Sure, it was possible that the black haired boy certainly may have had it well in hand, but Jasper had no way to know that. Better to take action and beg forgiveness than take inaction and regret if things hadn’t gone as the young mage claimed they would. It was very possible he could have been injured… or worse. His mind wandered to stories he had heard of people turning into zombies after being bitten. Jasper did not rightly have a lot of experience with the things himself, so he couldn’t be sure whether it was an old wives tale or not. Jasper watched as the young mage ran towards the area where Jasper himself had just come from. Perhaps… was this kid the one who had sent the letter? Certainly it wasn’t anyone Jasper could recall seeing before, and for those nights Jasper couldn’t very well recall due to the alcohol the boy wouldn’t have been allowed anyhow.

“Well, whatever.” Jasper muttered to himself, pulling out his pack of smokes and igniting a new one. He took a deep pull, exhaling a cloud of smoke and immediately calming what annoyance he had with the rude young man. There was only one way he was going to get any answers to any of the questions he had mulling over in his head, and that was to follow the young man and see what this was all about. He meandered back along the path the boy had tread, and ended up reaching the boy just as he unleashed a huge blast of wind that scattered a small horde of zombies and... ghosts that seemed to have been attracted by Jasper's overzealous entrance in the previous clearing.

“I’ll be damned, kid was right on both counts.” Jasper muttered to himself at the spectacle. He supposed he had been a bit loud… but quiet wasn’t really something Jasper did well anyhow. And how was he to know the place was crawling with those damned things? He had made it all the way here without running into anything. He had thought the place dead, but certainly not.. Undead.

“Fair enough, there’s a bit more to you than I originally thought.” Jasper called over to the young man, leaning casually against the tree as a thin stream of smoke slowly drifted up from his cigarette. It seemed this kid was showing off that he absolutely could do it himself without any help. Jasper just hoped that can do attitude didn’t get him hurt by biting off more than he could chew. “You the one that sent the letter? Think your carrier got the address wrong, cause I don’t think we’ve met. Name’s Jasper.”

HP: 500/500
MP: 480/500

Word Count: 461
Personal Word Count: 1346
Total Word Count:1822

It took Cael a second to catch his breath after unleashing the massive blast of wind, all of the air in his lungs having gone into the massive blast. When his breath returned, he wrinkled his nose as he caught the smell of cigarette smoke. So that man had followed him? Damn, he didn’t want to deal with someone who kept calling him kid. People didn’t even realize just how insulting that sounded to a teenager. But, the man was here now, and talking to him no less. As unfortunate as it was, he’d have to deal with making this man go away before continuing his investigation.

His voice continued to remain stiff in its address of the older man, the comment about Cael having more to him than he looked not helping in the slightest. ”Do I look injured to you? Desperate? No. I received a letter as well, I’m not the sender behind this.” He hadn’t even turned around yet, eyes too fixated forwards to watch for signs of any more of those zombies approaching. So far there was nothing, but even his superior senses could be overwhelmed by enough chaos; and this whole situation definitely qualified. There was an underlying feeling of unease in the very air, every single bit of Cael on edge. It felt like he was going to jump out of his own skin at any moment.

“If your letter was anything like mine, you should be able to tell that it was written by someone on the brink of death, or someone very desperate. It is more than likely the sender of the message has already turned into one of those zombies,” Cael said, turning up his chin in a gesture of pure disdain. Whoever this man was, his skills of deduction were sorely lacking. Did he really think that he’d been summoned here by some clearly healthy? Surely he had to be joking. Instead of acknowledging the man’s introduction by introducing himself, he stood up straighter. He could swear he heard some rustling in those bushes...

WC: 344
Personal WC: 920
MP: 150/200
HP: 200/200