The Art of Luck [Solo]

[Victor Lark]

Spring 17, 511

A breeze tossed cool air at the human’s back. The marmot rose and sniffed the air.

Victor froze. He had already been still in stealth, deprived muscles aching with immobility. Damn heart. It was too loud. It pounded against his chest like a war drum, warning the prey of his presence. His feet, too. They squished against the dew-wet Everstone rock as his strength began to stray, screaming at the scout to scurry off to his brothers and his underground home. But with his care and caution, somehow it had not noticed him yet. Somehow, he was succeeding.

It touched down all four feet again, black eyes darting around.

Out here, the spoilt boy had learned quickly the art of patience, but its necessity did not exactly mean he felt any better to wait, to watch, to hide. Though at the moment utter frustration had settled in his expression, only minutes earlier he had relished in the thrill of the finding. Through these highs and lows, one thing remained. He was convinced that this ugly little mammal would be his dinner, if he had to dig up the ground to find it again.

Then it lowered its nose and nibbled at the ground.

That was his chance. He was close enough. He could do it. His plan was to flatten it with his palm and cripple it with a dagger’s thrust to the side.

The reality was slightly different. He landed inches from it, less than silent as he pounded the ground with his feet. He barely grazed its rough fur with his fingers before it escaped, screeching to all the others that it was not safe above ground. Then it dove between the rocks. It had a lifetime of reflexes to protect itself from this novice hunter. Perhaps the cause was hopeless.

Victor wanted to voice his chagrin. The growl tickled at his throat, begging to be loosed, but he knew he had to remain quiet. His eyes could still grasp what his hands could not. The marmot wriggled between the rocks and disappeared underground, revealing his home to his latest predator. With a weary smile, he stalked toward the hole and crouched behind another rock, watching, waiting, hiding.

[Victor Lark]

There he stayed. Brow sweating, stomach turning, he stared at the hole in the ground. Sometimes he wondered if he had found the right one, or if he was just fixating on an irrelevant patch of grass and stone. There was no way to know, but still he remained. He was not as desperate for food as he was for success. This hunt was more than a meal, more than survival. He needed to prove to himself that he could do this. He had too much pride to go back home and admit defeat.

It was that god. He had never been so certain of something until he learned of Ionu, a divinity after his own heart. Though it was against its very creed and dogma to be certain or steadfast, Victor could not help the fact that he had been inspired by that god to leave his home, to brave the wilds, to trek himself half-way across the known world to see the city of tricks and pray to the god of tricksters. He had only ever heard of it in stories; he did not know if it even existed. But he wanted to know. He wanted to see it for himself, and that djed which he could not even think to describe.

He would not let the triviality of hunger’s ache distract him from that goal. He would conquer that blasted marmot.

The sun had moved in the sky by the time something stirred from within the earth. Victor thought he gasped, but if he did then the creature did not heed him. It scratched its way cautiously to the surface. It peeked a white muzzle into the air, then a pair of black eyes. Was it enough to grab? No, not yet. He had moved too soon the first time and learned his lesson. He waited until its whole body had squirmed into standing. Its nose reached out to sniff the air.

Before it could take its first breath to detect him, Victor reached out and grabbed the marmot by its neck. It screamed and writhed around in his grip. He tried to move his fingers to snap the spine, but his fingers did not quite know how, so he brought his dagger to its side. It took a second stab to kill it.

As the exasperation of the preceding hours melted from him, he groaned and threw his bloody weapon on the ground in relief. Then he sighed and bent to pick it up again, still holding his meal by the neck.

[Victor Lark]

Shoulders hanging victoriously, Lark returned to camp. There was a new smell on the air that even his human nose could detect, though he did not recognize it. It followed him as he progressed, as he counted the rocks and trees that would lead him to his camp. When the abandoned trunk was in sight, the odor had become an inexplicably putrid stench. He itched his nose consciously as he tossed his kill beside the ashes of his old fire. Only as it hit the ground did he notice the green bile that leaked from its stomach wound.

His head rolled and he fell to his knees beside it, sapped of all the energy he had left. His tired fingers reached out to inspect the dead thing, unsure of how to proceed. Was it spoiled? If he were to recover any of it, he figured he would have to act quickly. Sniffing to avoid the smell, he turned it and cut the stomach laterally like he had once seen the butcher do.

Blood and stomach contents flooded out of the third wound. Victor had to pause to keep himself from retching. Eventually he managed to dig out the punctured entrails and everything they were attached to. Perhaps he could clean it with—

He turned to the rounded piece of wood that sat beside his trunk. He had found it the day before and picked it up because of its likeness to a bowl, and luckily enough, it had collected some water in the evening’s brief spring shower. Now, however, he discovered it overturned, its contents long soaked into the soil. If that were not enough, deep scratches and bite marks had appeared on one the corner of his box, as if some curious animal had smelled the dried meats inside and failed in its attempts to steal them.

Finally, Victor allowed his voice the embittered groan it so desired. He threw the gutted marmot angrily at the ground again and stared at it almost pitifully for a few long chimes.

Once he decided that there was naught else to do but continue, he broke the stillness with a sigh. He ran a hand through his hair and then over his trunk’s fresh wounds. The clasps snapped open and he found his half-full waterskin; he took a quick drink and bathed the mammal’s muscle of the remaining discoloration. Satisfied with the solution, he did his best to prepare the rest of the meat. The skin peeled off smoothly, though it stuck around the feet and head. His dagger removed those easily enough, the thin bones cracking beneath the brand new blade.

He looked over his handiwork, a red shadow of the unlucky animal which had caught his eye so long ago. That was all done, but he had yet more work. There was a fire to be made out of probably moist wood, and he would have to collect it with his food in hand, or risk another perceptive beast taking it for itself. Oh, well. He hoisted the thing over his shoulder and scanned the area for fallen branches. At least his shirt was black, so it would not stain too badly.

[Victor Lark]

He had found a big stick. However useful it might be as future firewood, for now it was a walking staff. It clattered loudly against the rocks where he had directed it between them, unconcerned with those creatures who might be listening. In fact, his naïve plan was to make enough noise that any potential predators would see him as healthy and aware, if not obnoxious. That’s why songbirds did it, right?

For similar reasons, as well as to keep himself sane, he thought of a song. It was one of the few drinking ditties he knew, and even then he did not remember many complete verses. His singing voice was more of a sprawling form of talk, a mumbling version of hearty intoxicated yells in a dank tavern. He missed the taste of ale and the warmth of civilization, but it was splendidly romantic to recall his old life without feeling that sorry ache to return. He bent with the rhythm to add kindling to the growing bundle under his arm, poorly percussing with a rhythmic step or a slap of his stick.

“There’s an old boatsman, down ‘tween the docks,
who’ll get you where you’d like to go,
and he’ll throw you out for less than a gold
in ol’ Rhysol’s Ravok!

“There’s a sweet young girl, with bold black locks,
and eyes so bright and pretty good rack;
she’s a knife in her fist and it’s in your back
in ol’ Rhysol’s Ravok!”

A flash of movement interrupted his disgusting attempt at a tune and he paused in mid-step. The silence settled quickly, filling the corners of his ears with desperate speed. He peered closely where he thought he had seen it, but could detect nothing. Half a brow raised, he put his foot down and leaned, searching, but still nothing. “Hm.” he muttered candidly, then shrugged and turned around. It was time enough to head back.

But there was a new obstacle in his way. A peculiar dark-skinned creature stared up at him with blank black eyes, shining faintly in the sun like feldspar. It looked eerily like the marmot he’d slain, but too big. Like a dog. It rose to its hind legs, black nose twitching in that too-familiar fashion. Victor was not sure what to do. Shouldn’t it run away?

Perturbed, he stepped to the side and continued back from where he had come. He tried to whistle the same melody as his mind searched his memory for another set of lines, but only soundless air whirled between his lips; he had never been able to whistle, and now was no different. That did not keep him from trying, every once and a while. When he finally gave up, he heard the soft tinkling of a rock hitting another rock. When he looked to see the source, he saw the same creature, having followed him that short way. He chuckled, woefully oblivious to blatant signs of warning in the little monster’s pursuit.

He let it catch up to him, and walk alongside him like a pet. As his trunk rose into view above the rocky hillside, he remembered.

“There’s a clergyman you ought not mock;
don’t call him a snake or a fake or a cad
got a tongue the kind of silver that’ll make you mad
in ol’ Rhyso—”

[Victor Lark]

There stood in his makeshift camp another black beast, this one large enough to be a mother to the first. He realized its resemblance to the surrounding rocks and frowned, unsure of what to make of it. His posture became stiff and careful. Moving sideward, he tried to find a gaze or a pair of pupils to catch in a stare-down, but the thing stood its ground without movement. It did not even seem to breathe, or blink. Victor felt the beginnings of nervousness well up in his gut. He knew enough to match its stillness, if only to avoid a confrontation. After a time that felt like many chimes, he decided he had to be the one to make the first move.

He stepped forward and tossed the bundle of wood in his arms into the ashen pit between them. At the sudden movement and noise, the creature flinched and then raised its nose to the sky. The rocks on its neck separated like dry skin as it stretched, exposing the soft flesh beneath. Then a harsh screech cracked the day’s silence with more deafening stridence than Victor’s singing could have ever achieved. It was joined by the miniature at his side, which pounced to its senior almost cheerfully. The human stepped back, raising a hand and smiling as if diplomacy would help him. The great black head lowered and bared its sharp yellow teeth. Then it leapt.

Victor cried out and dropped everything, scrambling towards his trunk. The monster crashed into the rock that had sat behind him, carving white fracture lines into the black stone. It rebounded from that hard surface as if it were rubber, jumping again at him in a single fluid turn. His reflexes grabbed the wooden box and lifted it in front of him in the next instant, where it served as a terrible shield between him and the beast’s hurtling weight.

Collision with the hard dirt knocked the air out of him in a single, painful blow. Only the first two paws (if you could call them that) pressed down on him, but the bear-sized creature pinned him nonetheless. His breathless surprise left him immobilized beneath the burden. Those vicious teeth thrashed and shrieked inside an angry head that could not quite reach far enough to rip off his face.

But the Ravokan had fought in his own share of brawls, and had been in the same situation before—albeit with lighter men and thinner defenses. He squirmed to one side, tipping the support beneath the beast’s feet in an attempt to weaken its balance. Adrenaline gave him the strength to push against the compromised weight and send his unexpected adversary toppling. As he staggered to his feet, it struck the ground with its wide flank. There was no time to grab the trunk’s handle and flee; it could probably outrun him, anyhow. Instead he lunged for his abandoned dagger and hastily pointed it at the ponderous animal as it tried to right itself again.

[Victor Lark]

Presently he felt a sharp pain on his calf. He fell to one knee and his hand moved to clutch his leg, only to find the littler monster attached to it with the same fury as its mother. He grabbed it around its middle and tore it easily, albeit painfully, from his trousers. Without hesitation he sliced at it with his dagger, but the weapon bounced harmlessly on the wriggling stone flesh. Panicking, he knocked it against a nearby rock. It screamed in that same high pitch even as he bashed it again, and again and again. By the time it was silent for good, its screams had been replaced by its friend’s. The greater beast subsequently charged, as it was wont to do.

It jumped again, just as he expected it to, and so he ran toward it and ducked under its great bound. As it passed over him, he reached up and tried to stab up at its belly. But this was no ordinary beast. Its underside was just as hard as the rest of its body, and the blade made barely a scratch, served only to irritate it more. It did not stop to acknowledge its fallen ally as its feet carved more grooves into the surrounding stalagmites. He found himself limping as he crossed the clearing, keeping a turned eye on the reorienting yukman.

Was it getting tired? Victor liked to think so. They both shared a brief moment of hesitation, in which the heavy-breathed human tried once more to match its gaze. “Ionu,” he heard the word leave his mouth only after he had said it, inspired by desperation. He had never prayed before, but he assumed that moment was as good as any to try it. The words tumbled from his lips as fast as he could think of them, and he felt almost embarrassed of what came to mind. “Ionu, save me!”

Those heavy marmot feet began to knead the ground in preparation. “...Even though I'm sure it would be much more fun to see me die.” He looked around frantically, and discovered that he stood among his carefully prepared prey and forgotten walking stick. “But I promise that if I survive this," His shaking hands picked up the meat. “I will go all the way to Alvadas...” In a fit of panic, he threw his future meal at it. An offering. “...I will make mischief in your name...” It had the decency to glance down at the corpse as it slid through the dirt. Still, Victor had an inkling that it did not have a taste for marmot meat. “I will leave tricks and confusion where ever I go...” It looked up at him. Its growl was eerily high-pitched, but as chilling as any beast’s. Victor mumbled through it. “If I could only live through this, I would—”

It was learning; it did not leap, but rather ran at its fullest speed. Victor cried out and dove for his crude staff, scrambling out of the way. The thing’s momentum was too great to allow for a change in direction. He hit its side with all his might with that measly piece of wood, but still its armor remained impervious. The ground rocked as it slammed down to stop, still squealing, and Victor followed suit with an infuriated, guttural scream. He was unoffending, thoroughly innocent! What had he done to deserve such an impenetrable onslaught?

He did not wait for it to attack again. He rushed at it with his stick like a lance or a vaulting pole, his vocal chords loose and candid. He thought he saw it falter at the sound. Then, somehow, he managed to plant the end of his weapon in the cracks of its neck. Much to his delight, it stopped and choked. The force of its momentum knocked him off his feet nonetheless, snapping the staff in half and barreling its other end into his stomach. Gagging, Victor stumbled back towards his camp as his opponent sputtered and wheezed in a pitch that hurt his ears.

As it rose and stumbled, he could tell it had become furious where it had once been merely curious—or just inherently hateful. Victor could almost find some room in his heart to respect it, if only for the aimless chaos it had wrought on his tedious day. The sight of his fresh kindle-wood stirred in him the beginnings of an idea. He hastily retrieved the flint and steel from his trunk, and took it quickly to the pile. All the while he yelled as continuously as his lungs would allow, trying to disorient the stone animal.

And as he turned his head between it and the sparks of his effort, he thought he saw the earth itself churn in the distance.

[Victor Lark]

The fire caught like a glorious breath of providence, rising from the dry sticks in a wispy yellow streak. Victor did not have the time to exclaim his relief, but he did stop yelling like a madman. He swiftly moved to inflame another piece of wood as the monster’s breath began to return to it. He had not found time to arrange the kindling into anything more productive, but this pile was serving well enough. He carefully watched its slow but sure progress as lines of black smoke climbed together into the pale sky. It seemed almost wary of him. A touch of pride rose in his brow.

He thought he felt their eyes finally lock as it walked sidelong of the human and his project, apparently averse to the young flames. Short strokes of grass, like fur, twitched irritably on its back. Satisfied that the fire would grow where he left it, Victor stood. He held his dagger in one hand and half of his broken staff in the other. He crouched, stepped back, ready. His leg still pained him; he did not notice the blood that had begun to drip onto his dark shoe.

With a smile on his mouth, Victor stepped forward suddenly and taunted the yukman with a single, sudden syllable. Startled, it rose into an attack with a frenzied disregard for its old fears. It rounded the burning pile with a surprising speed, and his cocky expression fell to humbling alarm.

His reflexes could not save him. The creature knocked him from his feet again, whistling and snarling, and wrapped its teeth around his already wounded leg. Victor roared in agony, twisting his body so that he could see its face, and with a single lucky thrust pummeled his dagger into a heaving nostril. The strength of its jaw relinquished the his bloody limb, and its brother gave a vengeful kick. Unable to bring himself to stand, he pulled away from its distraction with his arms, dagger still clutched in his fist. There dripped from the blade a thick, dark liquid that might have been blood, or maybe wet dirt.

He found himself close to the cackling fire, which grew and shrank again in the soft breeze of the late afternoon. He prodded it with his half-stick, which seemed reluctant to become a torch; in the same second it finally grabbed hold of a flame, so too did Victor’s adversary grab hold of his ankle. He shouted in panic as he felt himself dragged through the rocky soil and suddenly pulled into the air, flung like a toy by the monster’s angry maw.

Victor writhed in the emptiness, unsure which way was up until gravity pulled him down. Golden heat was licking the wood in his hand and the whirling air. He saw the beast’s mouth open wide to catch him. In it, there was exposed a soft tongue and wet gums.

As quickly has he had been flung from the yukman, so they met again. The torch impaled the beast’s sticky innards, incinerating it from the inside. Victor rolled hard against the earth as it choked on the stick, coughed ash, stumbled. On weakening knees, it paced accidentally past the campfire, tossing fresh fire and embers over the meager grass surrounding.

Soon enough, its movements slowed. Its presumably stone lungs squealed with airless gasps, and it collapsed. As it lay forever still, he thought he could still hear the flames popping from within. Victor breathed audibly as he rose, stunned, pushing all his weight to his healthy leg. He limped to the beast, to make sure it was actually dead. When his eyes could make no judgment, he bent to retrieve the staff’s other half and nudged it. No reaction. An exhausted laugh seemed to resonate in the empty clearing.

But that familiar clicking tore his gaze from the heap of lifeless rocks, where it fell with sadness upon yet another stone marmot, and another, and another. Nearly a dozen of them circled him. Each was a different size, none taller or shorter than the first two, but all sneering with the same rage. Victor glanced up as if a shining blue raven would be there to greet him, and muttered to the sky, “Oh you would, wouldn’t you?”

He should have known it was not Ionu’s job to save him. As he lit the second torch and wearily considered his options, Victor wished he knew the names of other gods.

[Victor Lark]

He could not let the earth’s little bastards get the first move on him, but he was running out of ideas. Blood pounded in his heart, his leg, his throat. His head whirled at the ring of monsters, glowering like a pack of wolves in ambush. His injuries pinned him to the spot where he stood, threatening crippling pain, or worse, should he move too far. Why did they hesitate to attack, to devour him alive, or to unleash their menace and leave him for dead? A growing heat at the back of his legs answered happily.

Fire.

A short hop and turn poured the second half of his broken staff into the hungry flames. But before he could swing it back at them, the world erupted into a chorus of shrill screams and he felt tiny claws reach into his blind thigh. He twisted around to find the little obsidian creature ripping at the clothes and skin on the same petching leg as all the others; as soon as he could wrench it from him and throw it, shrieking, into the fire, another one latched onto his back. It was heavier than the first, and threatened to push Victor into the indiscriminate blaze, but he swiveled on his good leg and fell backwards onto the stone beast. The impact took the breath from them both, tossing the torch from the human’s grasp.

It thrashed beneath him like an overturned beetle, pushing him into the dirt again. Disoriented, he tried to pull himself to his feet, but his wounds left him slow and defenseless against the inevitable onslaught of pouncing stone marmots. The great weight of them pushed him down again, filled him with the misery of a hundred little claws and teeth against his back. He groped at the ground, looked through the mess of black movement for his torch, or his dagger, or anything. There was nothing. He cursed the gods. He cursed himself, and the yukmen, and the stupid little corpse across the clearing.

Then his probing eyes found yellow flames, not too far off, and a thought came to him. It was not any god’s job to save him; it was his. And it was his responsibility to prove to them that he was worth their while.

Adrenaline sparked anew, numbing the pain for an instant—long enough time to squirm towards his flaming staff and rise to one knee. His bloody leg hung limply as he scrambled and crawled to the giant dead yukman, waving hot yellow promises of death at his attackers. They withdrew a little, but did not cease in their angry crying, approaching again whenever the flames did not face them.

A daring individual lunged at his offending wrist. Even as he dropped his only weapon yet again, Victor managed to pivot with the creature’s momentum and pitched it at the campfire. As it flew, it dragged him a few inches before it could not hold on any longer. It landed on the dirt but fell headfirst into the inferno, which charred the flesh between the hard stone and swallowed up its life. Victor swayed to maintain his balance, yelping as he was required to push against his wounded leg to keep from falling. He winced and held his wrist, but there was no time to inspect it. He picked up the torch again. Glancing up, he noticed how the sparse grasses of the rocky terrain had been set alight. He caught sight of a doe-sized enemy fleeing into the safety of the distant hills. A smile cracked at its retreat. Victor recovered from his unusual bout of pessimism with a bit of desperate humor. “I am the fire master!” He bellowed, laughing, thrusting his dwindling stick at nothing in particular. “Fear my—”

When his eyes finally focused on the world immediate, his face wrinkled in confusion. It was as if Ionu had dropped in and blinded him to all things living. They were gone. Every time his torch had escaped him, it had ignited the grass where it fell. The little circle was no longer rolling with the backs of so many rock beasts, but fuming with giggling fire. They were at least smart enough to realize that the game of hurting him was not worth their lives. They had fled.

[Victor Lark]

Staggering, incredulous, Victor stared at the dancing lights for a few long moments. When he finally moved, it was to turn to his trunk. It lay where he had left it, mostly protected by its glaze seal, but there was a single strip of fire wriggling up from one corner where the varnish had worn thin. He half-crawled towards it, smothered the flame with his shoe, and propped it up to pull himself to his feet.

He leaned against his trusty box like a cane as he trudged to cooler ground. The sky was mostly empty, but the winds were moist and the damage did not seem to be any real conflagration; but what did he know? He was an unwitting human with little concept of wildfires.

Dodging the flames, he found his dagger but did not bother with his meal. The frustrations of the hunt seemed so petty, in comparison.

Damn leg. He thought he might have been able to walk through the pain, but still it would falter beneath him. Not even that was any excuse for stopping too soon, though. Victor may have been stupid enough to try and take on a yukman, but he knew enough to get far, far away from that place. The sun was dropping quickly when he finally found an adequately strong tree in which to spend the night. He moved around it warily, searching the area for a sign that it would be safe. As he did not know what to look for, he found nothing of note.

He slumped against the tree and was forced to sit up again for the cuts in his back. He leaned forward and sat, staring, for a long moment. Then he opened his trunk and, with some effort, peeled his pants from his legs. The wound beneath was not as bad as he anticipated; he had been dreading the potential use of the stitching skills which had been taught to him by a doctor back home. Licking parched lips, he poured the last of his water over his bloody calf and discovered a number of small punctures. He winced and tossed the skin back where he had found it, retrieving a roll of gauze. Unsure which hasty mistakes were acceptable, he was perhaps too careful in wrapping his wound. When he thought he was done, he tore the gauze and glanced at his hands. Only with the pain of his worst wound fading did he notice the burn blisters that had begun to form on his fingertips and the balls of his palms. He sighed, then wrapped them too. He was not sure what good it would do, since he could not figure out how to adequately cover his fingers and leave room for necessary dexterity. He had no choice but to be satisfied with his handiwork.

He was tired. The hole in the pantleg would have to wait for its mending. Stomach growling, Victor stood and dressed himself again. Another glance around accompanied the satisfying click of his closed box. His chin lifted up at the tree’s height. He examined his options. Once he was up there, he could sleep. It was everything he wanted in the whole world, to sleep. He reached up and tried to pull on a branch, but his hands would not let him, so he stepped away from it. He shrugged, huffing determination, then ran at it.

With the added momentum of his swinging box, he managed to wrap his arm over the lowest branch and use his good leg as leverage against the tree trunk. The limb was strong, but too close to the ground to be safe. He left his possessions at its bend (they were bulky and not as precious as himself, after all) and scrambled with his elbows to the next height. That would have to do. He did not have the energy to go any higher. It took a few tries to comfortably position his back against the rough bark, but when he did, his beleaguered mind found contentment. He whispered a less than grateful prayer and closed his eyes.

[Panna Cotta]

Your Patience is Rewarded! Brawling 3 Singing 2 Wilderness Survival 2 Stealth 1 Tactics 1 Hunting 1 Lore of fail hunting a marmot Lore of incompletely preparing a meal Lore of being oblivious to strange creatures Lore of standing your ground Lore of Yukman Lore of calling out Ionu NOTES You now have a storyteller secrets thread!. Please put the link in your User Profile. Another failed attempt at getting a meal! Heh. Still, I would advise you to give a moderator a heads-up before using a Yukman in your thread to avoid not having XP or lores for it. You would have received better awards if the thread wasn't so whimsical. The sin is forgivable, but you have been forewarned!