//?A Curious Sergal: Part 4.001
#4 of //?A Curious Sergal
what does this box do?
nvm
Part 3:
http://www.sofurry.com/view/376260
What would be a proper website to post this at?
I'm simply using this site due to its (thoeretical) abundance of users who understand the world of Vilous (which means I don't have to explain the setting as much). Is there another site that would be better for my purposes?
//?A Curious Sergal Part 4
Four hours (and five rest-stops due to his reduced stamina) later, Jax reached the outskirts of the first clan on his list. Just as he had done so many times before, Jax started a fire with the greenest leaves he could find right after leaving his signed copy of the parchment under a small stone nearby.
He ran off before anyone found him; three years of solitary confinement underground had made him afraid of his own shadow, let alone another Sergal.
***
He reached the next settlement on his list a little over an hour later and started to look for branches to make his fire, but stopped. Something was wrong. The mud path leading to the entrance of the village was filled with hundreds of tracks. He crouched down to observe the tracks better... they were all facing towards the village. He craned his neck up and sniffed the air. The aroma of smoke and death filled his nos-
Suddenly, a force slammed into his back. He was wrestled to the ground by the attacker that grappled onto his back. Neither one of them could get to their knives in fear that the other one would gain the advantage, so they kicked and bit and clawed at each other on the ground. Melee combat comes naturally to a Sergal, but considering the last time Jax had ever fought this close-quarters was when he play fought with Arroyo so many years ago, it was not coming very naturally to him. His Sergal assailant managed to wrap her jaws around his neck, but her attempt at anything vital was thwarted by his (mOther's?)collar, and didn't cause any major damage. Needless to say, this caused Jax to panic, and he thrashed around twice as sporadically as he had earlier. While his random throes caused more damage to the ground and himself than his target, one slash of his claws managed to cut across her face, causing her to yelp in pain and disengage her crushing maw from his neck. Seeing his window of opportunity wide open, he pushed his attacker away from him, scrambled up out of the mud, and ran as fast as his legs would take him. He ran so fast, he didn't even realize what had fallen out of his pack through the massive gash along its side caused by the brawl.
15 minutes later...
He was exhausted. His legs finally gave out after running for an eternity. His very core felt as if it was ablaze from how hot he was. He fell to his knees and counted the heartbeats until his assailant would stab him in the back. One, two, three... ten, eleven... forty-one, forty-two... Nothing happened. He slowly got his arms under him and propped himself up. He listened to the silence, and then glanced down at his hands. They had blood on them. He sniffed it; it wasn't his own. Only then he realized how much damage he had done to his assailant. He felt a ping of guilt for causing such a terrible wound that he himself had to endure in his childhood. His eyes started to well up with tears. Thick red tears. He had over-exerted himself again. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and surveyed his body for signs of damage. There were various cuts and scrapes all over his body, along with his bleeding eyes, mouth, a gash on his stomach, and his collar was damaged by the scout's powerful crushing maw, in addition to the fact that he could feel the curse's effect on his temperature as it skyrocketed. Almost all of the cuts and scrapes were small enough that his superior Sergal immune system should have closed them immediately, but because of the adverse effects of his curse, they were still bleeding as if they had been made only seconds ago. He rolled out his elongated tongue and started panting to cool himself down as he flipped his pack over his shoulder and took a roll of bandages along with a wrap of various herbs out. Then he realized the gash along the side of the pack, and them missing Shigu requisition letter with his signature on it. @#$%! He scolded himself, throwing his head back in exasperation. To prevent a bad day from getting worse, he quickly applied the herbs to his cuts and scrapes and bandaged them up. For the gash on his stomach he simply bandaged it up to temporarily slow the bleeding; he didn't have the required herbs to fix such a large cut. For his eyes, he wiped the blood out of them and kept some wraps in hand for wiping them clean every few minutes; as far as he knew there was no cure for that effect of his curse (other than not over-exerting himself in the first place). He stood up slowly after thirty minutes of catching his breath and cooling down, falling over the first attempt due to his sore ligaments, and limped back towards his home. (FORGOT TO MENTION EARLIER, COLLAR IS A TRANSLATION COLLAR FROM THE NOMADS- I WILL EXPLAIN THIS ALONG WITH MMORE OF THE NOMADS' HISTORY IN PART 2 after finals)
***
Rain (Silves) looked at the map splayed out on the table in front of her and Zyn. All was going according to plan. The Brutal General had already united the Tatola (the homelands of the Northern Sergal), and now all that stood between her and a Sailzane campaign was securing the green-belt between the two lands. Once that was taken, supplies could freely pass from the Tatola, through the green-belt, and into the hands of her forces in the Sailzane.
"Permission to enter General?"
Rain turned around and saw Ktak standing in the entrance of the command tent. Her fur was in complete disarray, and matted with blood in certain places. She was saluting with her hand over her left eye as was customary under the command of the Brutal General.
"Granted"
Ktak entered, still holding her hand over her left eye.
"You may be at ease" Rain said, finding it strange that Ktak was still saluting.
"If it is allowed, General..." Ktak's voice trailed off as Rain realized what she was covering. Blood dropped down from the gash on her left eye, staining Ktak's pristine white fur with red.
"Proceed" Rain allowed.
"While I was on patrol, I encountered a strange black Sergal walking on the path towards the town. He looked like he didn't know your forces took the town yesterday. I attacked him, as per your orders relating to anyone who comes near the town, but he got away. Before he could escape, however, I was able to cut his backpack open. This fell out"
Ktak held up the parchment that had fallen out of Jax' pack. Rain took it and set it on her table. She, along with most Sergals, was illiterate (IS SHE?), but something at the bottom of the parchment caught her eye.
"Zyn, what do you make of this?" Rain inquired, pointing to the crossed out 'eye of death' symbol that was the emblem of the Shigu clan.
Zyn paused while studying the bottom of the paper, but it wasn't the crossed out emblem that caught his eye.
"Oh..." was all he could say at first, his mind fixated on the crude hexagon drawn in photoreflexive ink on the paper. (trying to point out that Zyn knows of type of ink, thus he knows about the Nomad's pens and ergo the Nomads)
***
10 minutes later...
Nom.
The rabbit had been so delicious, Jax had swallowed it whole (and considering he was a Sergal, this was not just a hyperbole). He scrambled, somewhat precariously as he was laden with his distended belly, back into the tree to finish digesting. It was nighttime (Jax is nocturnal), but after such a large meal for a lone Sergal, he decided a nap would do him (and his injuries) good. He stretched himself out on the branch, curling up comfy in the nook of the tree, and embracing the blanket of cold that permeated his skin. That was the one thing that he missed about the sun... its warmth. Mother Night would shroud him in her aegis of shadow and let him see when no one else could, but she could never provide him with the warmth the sun and Mother had given him... his first Mother that is.
A gentle warm breeze flew over him as he thought of her... then he smelled smoke. He shot up and scanned the area upwind to find the source of the fire. The undersides of the trees to his east were illuminated by a flickering orange aura. He wearily lifted himself up and double-checked that his pack was tightened around him should he have needed to move swiftly in a fight. Then he hopped from tree to tree in the low canopy to the source of the fire. When he reached it, he looked down. A young Shigu scout was sitting, warming himself in front of a fire, mumbling to himself about something under his breath.
"@#$% Commander Thrax, I don't see him freezing his tail off in the middle of the @#$% green-belt!(the green-belt can get quite cold during nighttime)"(Yes Thrax is from Loki, I hope you don't mind)
It was obvious to Jax that this scout was quite inexperienced, so he opted to not kill him outright (this was also because Jax had just eaten, and even with the element of surprise would have some difficulty coming out of the fight unscathed). The scout sat down and picked up a hunk of raw meat that looked quite fresh. Devising a plan, Jax took some of the torpora leaves in his pack and a piece of bark off the tree he was in. He threw the bark off in the distance.
Crack!
The scout's ears shot up and honed in on their invisible target instantaneously. The Shigu grabbed his spear and growled in the direction of the sound before running off into the foliage. Jax jumped down from his perch and sprinkled some ground-up/ powdered leaves onto the meat before scrambling back up into the canopy.
After a few minutes the scout returned to his campfire and sat back down, but kept his hand on the spear. He started to eat the meat. Jax settled in; it wouldn't be long now.
5 minutes later...
After an eternity of yawns that even made Jax want to nod off to sleep, the scout slumped over and squashed its muzzle into the ground. Jax hopped down for the second time, and started to go through the scout's pack. A note. Jax unraveled it and set to work copying it down on a parchment from his backpack. This one was from a Shigu commander nearby asking for reinforcements to attack a nearby town. He raveled up the note and motioned to put it back into the scout's backpack when something caught his eye. Something shiny. He reached into the pack and grabbed it with his inquisitive, probing fingers. As he looked at his palm his blood turned to ice in his veins. Sitting gently in his open palm was the manifestation of all his evil. He took the trinket with the 'eye of death' into his pack and stood up. He wanted to dispose of it later. A pressure rose inside of him, similar to the day after rediscovering his parents. He held his rage inside himself, and only manifested it outside himself by hatefully taking a handful of topora leaves and shoving them into the scout's throat. If the dosage didn't kill him, his commanders would (for nodding off on the job). Jax scrambled back into the canopy and curled up on himself to conserve heat. In all truth, he didn't quite need to conserve heat that night; he could have kept quite a few people warm with his boiling rage.
Part 5: