A Mysterious Exchange [Cantillion]

[Athaera]

6th of Fall, 514 AV

Last time Athaera visited the Bulletin Board, she almost go slaughtered by a pack of ghost wolves, but the jobs always seemed to have good pay. Once again, there was a collection of posters, and tattered pieces of paper nailed to it from flyers that had been taken down. The board had seen better days, but was still useful. There was a sheet of paper fluttering in the wind that caught Athaera's eyes, and she glanced at it. It was written in sloppy, hurried scrawl, and the nail was barely hammered in, as if the person was panicking, or in a hurry, or just lazy.

Need a hunter to discuss issues. Come to my apartment. Payment will be determined later. The address was scrawled under it, barely distinguishable. Athaera squinted harder, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She finally figured it out, and the whole hush-hush mentality of the request made Athaera greedy for information. She ripped the paper off the nail, careful to preserve the words, specifically the address. She folded it up, slipping it into her pocket, before thinking better of it and holding it in her hand.

It took some wandering, and some asking for where the street was, but she finally found the apartment in the depths of the city. It looked fairly average, a typical wooden door, if not fairly fancy. Taking one last glance at the sheet, which was crumpled from her clutching it, she wondered why this man needed a hunter, but didn't really question it. Athaera took a deep breath. What am I getting in to this time? She lifted her hand up, feeling her eyes glow a radiant yellow, and her knuckles slowly rapped on the door. I better get out of this alive. Yes, she was afraid, but she was also fairly excited, as purple began to swirl in her eyes.

[Cantillion]

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6th of Fall, 514 AV The door opened slightly, and a pair of green eyes darted back and forth. It only took a moment to confirm the lack of wings, and the door opened wider, if only a little. Cantillion gave the girl a cursory look-over. She stood taller than he was, but seemed to be younger. A look at her gold-violet eyes made his own green eyes bloom orange; he had never met anyone else with changing eyes like his, and though he had suspected that there were other humans out there with that trait, he had yet to see any. Focus, he reminded himself silently. "Are you a hunter?" he asked the girl quietly. If she was, he would invite her inside to speak privately. Cantillion had quite a few questions he was hoping to get answers to -- answers only a hunter could provide.

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[Athaera]

Athaera waited impatiently, tapping her foot until she heard the door knob rotate. The door was opened a crack, and an eye peeked through, darting across her body before he opened the door slightly farther. The man was a bit shorter than her, and she looked down on him slightly. Still, he looked older than her, and his Vantha-like eyes seemed to have seen more than they would've liked to. His Vantha heritage was clarified a his eyes turned orange, as if he was thinking the same things. He had short, dark hair, scraggly and messy. His clothes were fairly baggy, as if he was uncomfortable showing his body.

After a few seconds of staring, he finally broke the silence with a deep breath and nervous stutter of, "Are you a hunter?" Athaera nodded. "Yes, I am." This was a fairly obvious question, wasn't it? Why else would she be here? The flyer clearly stated she had to be a hunter.

[Cantillion]

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"Come in," he said quietly, opening the door up and stepping back to let his guest enter his room. The place was clean; stark, on account of the fact that Cantillion had very little in the way of posessions to make a mess with. What little furniture was in his room had been clustered in the back, to take advantage of the natural light. As he pulled the single chair out from his table, he glanced over at the hunter, inadvertently passing over a longbow, propped up against the wall next to the door. "Please, sit," he offered, taking a seat at the edge of his bed, just a few feet away. "I was hoping we could talk about hunting...Is that alright?"

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[Athaera]

Athaera stepped into the small apartment. There was a bit of a gap in the floor, with the rest of the furniture to one edge. She noted the longbow leaning against the wall. She was a bit cautious sitting down on the chair he'd provided. Athaera wasn't sure what it was, but there was something a bit off about the man. It might've been the way he did everything so cautiously, as if afraid of some foreign force.

"That's fine." Once again, that was why she was here, wasn't it? "Are you a hunter too?" She wasn't sure if the bow was for fighting or hunting, or something else, but was curious.

[Cantillion]

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He clasped his hands together. "I...no," he answered. "I mean, I know some things, about hunting. But I've never actually," he trailed off. Cantillion's eyes shifted back to emerald green as he blinked a few times, nervously. "I was, um, hoping to gain some insight. From a hunter," he continued, taking a deep breath to try and relax. "Have you ever hunted...something," he paused, nearly saying 'someone' instead. "Something that knew it was being hunted? Like it...it discovered you? Anything like that?" As the words left his mouth, his hands clasped tighter. He realized he probably sounded foolish, but he was concerned that simply cutting to the chase might just scare this young huntress away.

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[Athaera]

Athaera was surprised to see that he didn't hunt, despite the bow. "Then why do you have the bow?" she asked before realising it was probably rude. "Okay, what do you need to know?" He was nervous, it was evident as his eyes turned green again. She simply assumed that color meant nervousness, by his actions, the nervously clasped hands, and the stutter.

Athaera narrowed her eyes at his next question. "Wait... are you trying to hunt someone down?" He was very suspicious, and by the way he was acting, he probably was. "But to answer your question, no. I only have experience hunting animals." She paused, thinking. "Well, there was one time, it was a group effort, funded by Leo Vanili." Or, at least, that was what she thought the name was, from what she recalled. "There was a pack of phantom wolves. Do you want me to continue?

[Cantillion]

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Cantillion let the girl's questions pass in silence, and was grateful when she let them pass as well. His expression sagged as she answered his question, but just moments later, she reneged on her answer, and he perked up to hear the explanation. "Phantom wolves?" he asked. "Please, continue," he told her quickly. He wasn't sure her story would provide the insight he was looking for, but Cantillion wouldn't know until he heard it.

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[Athaera]

The man hadn't answered most of her questions, probably, for the better. Athaera took a deep breath, leaning forward so he could hear him better. "There were phantom wolves... attacking merchants and trading cargo. We were supposed to figure out a way to get rid of them," she explained, "We went into the bronze woods, and the wolves began to attack us, but they were just an apparition. But then people from the same group, hypnotised or something, began to attack us. It wasn't a very strong spell, so we could snap them out of it, and by the time we actually got to the source of it all, others had already gotten to the source and stopped it, so I don't know too much." Athaera wasn't the best at storytelling. It was one trait of her vantha heritage she hadn't absorbed.

[Cantillion]

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Cantillion hung on every word. In truth, he was accustomed to grizzly hunter's tales; they were the kinds of stories he repeated to his young masters as children, and if there was one thing he had picked up from repeating all of those stories, it was that every hunter's tale has a lesson to be learned. "This is just what I was looking for," he smiled, eyes shifting to a blue-green mix. "How did you get to 'the source'?" he asked quickly, prying for the details he was searching for.

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