You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? she begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”
((How do you respond?))
"Gran.", Vyktor grumbled. His waterbag sloshed as he took a seat, the wood protesting at his weight. He cleared his throat, spit, then leaned forward.
"Not gonna. See - I know wheat you've been doin'. I know where the kids been goin'. Been knowin' it all.", he said, pulling from a pocket of his cloak a small, once sealed bounty. The wax seal broken, he slid it across the table so it would open, revealing the drawing of the old hag's visage, though the artist's interpretation certainly added a few warts. Clearly, openly, it stated her name and price - of five hundred minas.
"Don't try makin' excuses. I've heard 'em. 'Na' Ser, 'tis the villagers! They be jealous!'", he mocked before drawing a small dagger from its sheath.
"Heard it 'fore, didn't care then. Don't care now. Ah've come 'fer ya ear and your blood. How much I spill is on you."
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(Consider this just for fun. Crowmancy and the poison mentioned are not canon, I just wanted to write more. Only considerations is the hints at a rough history, obviously a hunter for hire, and experience fighting.)
An explosion of black feathers blinded the Hunter, lost in its abyssal flurry for only a moment before he growled and stood. Blood broke free from a cut made by one of the feathers trailing from his jaw to his neck, his life ichor staining the collar of his armor before he raised a hand to block any more. With eyes closed, the assault began to ramp itself higher, faster, more intense as the hag's laugh broke free through the blizzard of magical crowmancy.
Violence was his lifeblood, and the Hunter never entered the den of his prey without preparation. He hadn't expected the bog-witch to break into such a lightning fast assault, made worse he couldn't even open his eyes without fear of losing them. With adrenaline beginning to flood his body, habits and training took over as he tore a leather pouch of poisoned glass shards from his belt - letting the sparkling starlight of them spread wide infront of him.
It took only a moment before the assault paused in its crescendo, and only a second longer for it to fail entirely. The Hag used her own blood to form these feathers, these birds, and the glass had made micro cuts in each as they pushed through the shard-cloud. The poison was specially crafted, a nervous poison meant to draw the mana and arcane from mages - rare, expensive, all the more important to hunt such a monster.
When the Hag's laughter had become more of a whine, a groan in the dark, Vyktor stood to his full height and opened his eyes once more. One cloudy, cataracts forcing the ghost eye to watch her out of habit than any usefulness; the other piercing the child-killer's soul. His lip curled into a snarl as he spoke, his voice raspy but full of a great and righteous fury;
"Wasn't even about the money - I'd of killed your kind whether they paid a pence or a silver.", he spat, deftly drawing his blade in a single movement.
"No!", she cried out, hand raised as she tried to form into Crow's once more - but the micro cuts in her flesh never transformed as they had before. Blood opened, spilled, the Hag cried out in pain - and nothing happened. The cuts did not heal, she wailed, and Vyktor with mercy befitting a Cobra stomped over the rotted wooden planks of her floor and let the blade fall deep into her jagged, blackened heart.
He took his time finding his dagger, carving from her a pound of flesh, and leaving with all he would need to prove that the bounty had been completed.
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