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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 733601" data-attributes="member: 5137">Vignette: The River of PainThe orcs had scouts arranged in pairs a hundred feet out in all directions, and single scouts another thousand feet out past that, two hundred scouts in all. The single scouts tended to stay up trees, where they were harder to find and take out swiftly, and carried war drums to beat warnings with. Akeros could sneak by them, given an hour or two, but he needed to know where they were, and he didn't like to rely on chance.Akeros was a patient man.In the distance, he heard war drums change rhythm, and waited. Soon enough, a scout began beating queries nearby. Akeros knew where he was now. As the scout beat on his war drum, Akeros slipped between trees, staying away from the orc's line of sight outward.When the orc stopped, he was 20 feet from him, crouched behind a root, his hair and skin plastered with mud and stains. In one hand, a looped noose; in the other, a sharp knife.As the scout sighed and stretched, arms overhead and away from the drum, Akeros moved in. He slashed the drum with the knife to prevent loud sounds, and dropped the noose over the orc's head. The scout struggled, and Akeros took some bruises, a knife in the leg, but death comes swiftly in Akeros' hands - the fight was already over, it just took time for the body to stop struggling.Akeros was a patient man.Swiftly and silently, Akeros began moving towards the orc camps. The paired scouts were less stealthy. They simply stayed within sight of each other, as a kind of living fence, and stayed in pairs in case of silent attacks on one.Akeros, resembling a dirt mound, crawled directly between two "posts" of that living fence. He moved slowly and cautiously, blending as much as possible with the natural dips in the ground, occasionally taking a moment between trees to stretch or pick a new spot to continue. It took an hour to cover 50 feet.Akeros was a patient man.Then, ahead, his quarry. An orc carefully identified by loyal Theralis espers as the most powerful shaman in the Breaking Cat tribe. Akeros kept his mind blank, and thought of nothing. His body moved mechanically, taking the actions he'd told himself to, without thinking of what those actions were for.The spirits had warned the shaman that today would be dangerous, so he periodically checked for ill intent nearby. Akeros attacked moments after he'd assured himself that there was none. A poisoned arrow, burning like acid, sprouted from his chest. He had time to realize that it had punctured a lung when the second one punctured his throat and, gurgling, he fell to the ground.Akeros ran, and the two nearest warbands gave chase. Pursued by half a hundred orcs, all gaining, Akeros ran as straight as an arrow loosed from the bowstring. He had backup to get him out, an arcanist ready to summon a great bird to lift him away, but the sooner he called for it, the sooner the bird would wink out of existence. He needed it at the last minute, not before, to maximize where it could take him.Akeros was a patient man, even with half a hundred orcs howling for his head.Ahead, he saw freedom. He was still out of range of easy hits with the spear, and the bird could get him from here. He yelled the signal, and a giant eagle appeared, diving out of the sky for his position.Then a spear, thrown from a few hundred feet away, with practically no chance to hit while running... hit. It stabbed into Akeros' back right between the shoulder blades, severing his spine, piercing his heart, and finished punching through to rest against the inside of his sternum. As his heart's blood burst into his chest cavity, the world went red, then black.The eagle, with no orders other than to grab the human below, picked up the corpse as it flopped and rolled across the ground, and lifted Akeros into the sky.Somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth, Akeros' soul was dragged, screaming, into the river he named himself after.Hethas is patient, too.</blockquote>

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