Snapping branches and anger fueled snarls silenced the sounds of the forest. Forest creatures large and small skittered and fled and hid from the disturbance. The source of the racket was a hulking kobold that crashed through the trees in an awkward three-limbed lope. One of it's claws was cradled close to his chest, a long gash running down it and lightly weeping blood. A smaller wound could be seen in it's side, already scabbed over, and the tip of his tail had been severed.
Draxar snarled as he crashed through another in a long line of bushes on his zigzagging run through the forest. He forged a new path through, randomly switching directions and traveling through difficult terrain, sometimes leaping from tree to tree and other times simply crashing through them as he fled the tiny human pest that had wounded him. Him! A kobold of the great Kou clan in the forest of Kresh!
Memories of the fresh encounter flashed through his head. The cowardly human had ambushed him while he slept, exhausted from a long and fruitless hunt! He could already hear the calm, rational voice of his warrior mentor telling him it was his fault. He was too overconfident, too full of pride. Draxar snarled again, banishing the image of smirking, know-it-all Onyr's face. The so called logical way was weak! Even now the humans forayed deeper into the forest, and the tribe in their cowardice had forbidden any fights! The council claimed the humans wouldn't penetrate the deeper reaches of the forest, that the Forest King would deal with them if they did.
But Draxar was no fool. He saw how the leaders whispered, how the sentries paid special attention to the forest core. The stronger creatures of the deep forest had begun to encroach on the tribe's territory. Everyone at the den had known within hours when the first hunting party failed to return. The warriors who had been sent out to retrieve them had found only scraps. Then they'd been ambushed by the spiderlings. Those web obsessed freaks had hurled accusations that the Kou clan had taken their great ancestor, and demanded their return. Or so said the only warrior to make it back, before he'd succumbed to the poison in his veins. There were talks of war with the spiderlings, even as every day the humans drew closer and closer!
Worse still was something that Onyr had let slip when Draxar had said he was ready to be tested. That the only reason the spiderling's ancestor would be gone was if the deep territories were changing, and the stronger creatures and tribes must be expanding out. He said that it would be best to just hunt a mundane creature to bring back. Draxar had felt betrayed! How dare Onyr belittle his strength, tell him to hunt something any apprentice hunter could kill alone on his ascension test! Such weak prey would only prove enough for him to be a the lowest caste, a teatlan, a glorified assistant!
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Draxar had ignored his mentor's advice and gone straight into the deep forest. He would hunt and kill a strong creature from the core with just his claws and prove his strength!
He'd traveled for over a day to arrive at the edge of the deep parts of the forest dove straight in. He hadn't bothered to rest, since it was the deeps surely a strong creature would challenge him as soon as he stepped foot into that foreboding part of the forest, but what he found was like nothing he'd expected. The forest teemed with life, but it was all mundane, simple creatures that could be found on the outer perimeter near the human settlement! He'd even spotted a human's house cat frolicking in the trees! Did the humans dare sully this most sacred part of the forest?! Why hadn't the Forest King slaughtered them yet?!
Draxar had continued hunting for a full day, catching only old, nearly faded signs of worth prey all the while, when he found it. The scent of a human! The indignation at the human's trespass ate at him, so he followed the scent, going deeper into the forest and following it up a ridge to an empty clearing with a spring of cool, fresh water. He'd drunk his fill, sating his thirst, then continued to follow the human's filthy scent across the clearing into a cave. The cave was tiny, barely wide enough for two of him, and the human's scent led here where it ended. No matter. The human would return to this shelter, he was sure of it, and he would kill it when it did!
Draxar settled in, curling his tail around himself and pointing his head toward the cave entrance before resting to recuperate his strength. He would hear the clumsy human as it came in, and then he would attack, and rip it apart with his claws!
A high pitched scream and sharp pain in his side woke him up!
He instinctively leapt away from the pain and snarled. The human! It had snuck up on him with the dishonor common to its craven kind and attacked! How dare this lesser thing, alone, and weak, attack him!
He'd snarled at the human and unleashed his body's strength, refusing to use the skills gifted to him by the system, a final disgrace to heap on the human's head before he ripped it from its puny shoulders!
He made a mistake. The human's weapon bit deep and sapped him of his strength. He could feel the icy chill as his very life force was drained! He'd whipped his tail at the human to gain some space and prepare for another exchange, but the human sliced the tip of his tail off! The shame!
Draxar retreated then, vowing to return and slay the human who had wounded him. But it had proven it was not as weak as it seemed. He grinned at the thought, calling up his system skills list. The human had not shown any skills, simply the pitiful strength of its body flailing around a strong weapon. He would heal and he would return. The human's head would be his proof of strength, and its weapon a trophy to his prowess.
Returning to the present, Draxar snarled menacingly as he leapt over a small stream, his wounds itching as his [Regeneration] trait finally began to kick in. First he would find a place to rest while he healed and recovered his strength, then he would return and take the human's head!